Countless Evangelicals claim they believe that every word of their inspired, inerrant Bible is absolutely true. In their minds, every word in the sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible is straight from the mouth of God. Thus, when they read the Bible, there’s no need to interpret it. God said it and they believe it! End of discussion.
If this notion is true, why, then, do Evangelical believers have such differing beliefs? Not only do their beliefs conflict with those of non-Evangelical Christians, their “infallible” beliefs are often at odds with the beliefs of their fellow Evangelicals. If there is ONE Lord, ONE Faith, and ONE Baptism, and all believers have God, the Holy Spirit, living inside of them acting as their teacher and guide, why all the differing beliefs? If all one needs to do is to read the Bible to find God’s truth, why do Christians hold a cornucopia of contradictory beliefs?
Suppose, for a minute, that a person living on an island came upon a copy of the Bible. This man has never been exposed to Christianity. He has never heard about the Christian God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit. Would this man naturally come to the same beliefs as Evangelicals? Surely, if all one needs to do is read the wonderful, matchless Holy King James Bible to find God’s truth, shouldn’t this man come to the same conclusions as a Bible college-trained Evangelical preacher?
If all one needs to do is read the Bible to find “truth,” then why the need for pastors, teachers, and Bible college professors? If a man just needs to faithfully and diligently read the Bible to find truth, then why do pastors spend three to seven years in college learning how to properly study and understand the Bible? Why do pastors buy Bible commentaries and other theological books to help them with their studies? In fact, why do pastors preach sermons at all? If the Bible is truth, why not just read the Biblical text to congregants? Straight from God’s mouth to their ears, right?
The fact is, the moment a person starts reading the Bible, he is interpreting the text. There’s no such thing as just reading and believing. The mind of every Bible reader is conditioned by the religious beliefs held by his culture, family, and church. So, when he reads the Bible, he is filtering its words through the beliefs, teachings, dogma, and interpretations of others. There’s no such thing as naked truth, especially when it comes to the Bible. Its text has been interpreted and reinterpreted for thousands of years. What one generation of Christians believed is often not what a different generation believed. Evangelical preachers love to think that their churches are just like the churches of first century Christians. These promulgators of ignorance believe that First Baptist Church in Podunk, Mississippi is exactly the same as the churches founded by the apostles two thousand years ago. To the uninitiated, this kind of thinking sounds absurd, but having grown up in Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches, I can tell you that such thinking is common. IFB preachers love to think that their churches are “old-fashioned” congregations. In their minds, “old-fashioned” means their churches are patterned after early New Testament churches. What it really means, however, is that their churches are like congregations were in the 1950s.
Here’s the truth: God’s “truth” is actually man’s interpretation of an ancient religious text. Beliefs are, at best, educated opinions. At worst, beliefs are opinions of poorly educated dunces who think of themselves more highly than they ought. I am at the place where, when a Fundamentalist Christian says to me, THE BIBLE SAYS _________, my response is, So what? All you are doing is expressing your opinion.
This is why the best way to engage Evangelicals is to attack the nature of the Biblical text itself. When Evangelicals speak authoritatively, their foundation is not as strong as they think it is. This is why they need a plethora of presuppositions to prop up their house of cards. The Bible is God’s Word, Evangelicals say, because the Bible says it is. The Evangelical deity is the one true God because the Bible says he, he, and he is. The Evangelical God created the universe 6,023 years ago because the Bible says he did. Humans are sinners by nature because the Bible says they are. All these “truths” are KNOWN by unbelievers, so there is no need to prove them. Atheists and their ilk live in denial of these “truths.” In fact, there’s no such thing as an atheist because everyone KNOWS the Evangelical God is the one true God. Atheists suppress what they know to be true, or so the thinking goes anyway. The only way to effectively reach Evangelicals, then, is to challenge their infallible interpretations of the Bible. We must become like the Devil in Genesis when he said to Adam and Eve, Yea, hath God said?Are you sure God said what you believe he said, Baptist Bob? Once doubt is sown in their minds, then, and only then, are they ready to critically examine the Biblical text.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
In July, I reported that Jonathan Young, a Sunday school teacher at Firstborn Baptist Church — an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation — in Benson, North Carolina was accused of raping several church girls. WRAL-5 reported that Young had been charged with ” six charges of first-degree rape of a child, three charges of statutory rape, two charges of first-degree sexual offense and two charges of indecent liberties with a child.” The charges against Young covered alleged crimes committed between 2004 and 2014.
Since then, former church members Cherith Roberson and Beka Faust accused Firstborn Baptist leadership of operating a cult. WRAL reported:
It began with the arrest of a Sunday school teacher on 13 charges of sexually assaulting children earlier this month.
Now, investigators with the Johnston County Sheriff’s Office are speaking with more people who have come forward to say they too were molested or abused in other ways at the church.
Some of those same people have reached out to WRAL News, saying they will no longer be silent.
Not unlike the opaque windows of the Firstborn Baptist Church in Benson that let in very little light, seven former members tell us there is a dark climate within those church walls.
“There’s this culture of fear and you have to obey the ultimate leader and authority,” said Cherith Roberson, 32, a former church member. “And it starts from the beginning.”
Roberson’s family joined when she was 7 years old.
“It was taught, it was preached about, that you break a child’s spirit. And you do that by whatever means necessary,” she said.
Her little sister, Beka Foust, was just 5 years old.
“I knew this was not normal,” Foust said. “I didn’t know what normal was.”
The sisters said all the children attended school at church. They said they were told what to wear, what to believe, and were not allowed contact with anyone on the outside.
“You were ostracized from everybody else,” Foust said.
And they said there were serious consequences for breaking rules.
“They would put me in the closet with a light out and I would just sit there all day,” Foust said. “I was allowed to eat once.”
“There was a lot of physical and emotional abuse that went way beyond spanking,” Roberson said. “From spanking, to beating, there was a huge paddle in the church school that I attended.”
They said church members were publicly humiliated from the pulpit and children were beaten so others could hear their screams.
Sadly, nothing surprising here. Typical cultic behavior by IFB preachers who use the Bible to abuse congregants and force them to “obey” the church’s interpretation of its words.
In September, Young’s bond was reduced from $1 million to $400,000. The church denies any and all accusations levied against Young and church leaders.
I recently asked readers to submit questions to me they would like me to answer. If you would like to submit a question, please follow the instructions listed here.
Sgl asked:
Can you re-create an example of one of your fire-and-brimstone fundamentalist sermons (well, just a few minutes, not an entire sermon), the kind of sermon and theology you had at the beginning of your career? And a few minutes of something like your more progressive sermons that you gave before you left the ministry?
Just curious because you say there are no extant recordings of your sermons. and from listening to some of the interviews you’ve done, your voice is too mild mannered for me to envision what I surmise that “fire and brimstone” is supposed to sound like. So it’s less about your actual theology, because you’ve covered that in all your posts, but about how you actually delivered this to the audience that I’m curious about.
I no longer have the voice necessary to recreate a sermon from back in my Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preaching days. Twenty-five years of preaching sermons has caused a good bit of damage to my voice, especially my singing voice. I used to have a pleasant tenor voice. Polly and I would often sing musical specials and for many years I led the congregational singing. Thanks to repeatedly misusing and overusing my voice, I no longer can sing.
I started out as a fire and brimstone preacher. Loud, animated, and I moved around a lot, including coming down from the platform to where the crowd was seated. I primarily preached topical (choose a topic and find Bible verses to support your conclusions) or textual (start with a passage of Scripture) sermons. I remained a fire and brimstone preacher into the mid-1990s.
Once I became a Calvinist, my style of preaching dramatically changed. While I could still be animated, I didn’t move around as much. I abandoned topical and textual preaching, and began preaching expositional sermons — sermons that are generally verse-by verse and allow the text to determine what is emphasized. I became more of a Bible teacher than a Baptist evangelist. I preached through numerous books of the Bible, including most of the New Testament. I preached over 100 sermons from the gospel of John (my favorite gospel). I also preached numerous sermons from 1 John, James, Hebrews, and Revelation (from a posttribulational, amillennial viewpoint). I suspect that the way I do interviews today is similar to preaching style post-IFB.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 61, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 40 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.
Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section. If you are a first-time commenter, please read the commenting policy before wowing readers with your words. All first-time comments are moderated. If you would like to contact Bruce directly, please use the contact form to do so.
Donations are always appreciated. Donations on a monthly basis can be made through Patreon. One-time donations can be made through PayPal.
The Gerencser Family Headed for Church, Circa 1961-1962. I am the sharply dressed boy with a massive comb-over.
I was born in June 1957. My parents had me baptized in a mainline Protestant church (Lutheran or Episcopalian), but they moved to San Diego, California in the early 1960s, and I became a saved, baptized member of a Fundamentalist Baptist congregation — Scott Memorial Baptist Church, Tim LaHaye, pastor. From that time to my exit from Christianity in 2008, I was to some degree or another an Evangelical Christian. I say to some degree or another, because towards the end of my sojourn in Egypt I escaped Evangelicalism for a time. My wife and I visited numerous mainline churches, ranging from Greek Orthodox to United Methodist and from Roman Catholic to Lutheran. (Please read But Our Church is DIFFERENT!) The last church we attended before exiting out the back door never to return was a United Methodist church pastored by an Evangelical man who received his seminary education at Ohio Christian University. So while I have visited and attended for a short while non-Evangelical churches, my pedigree is solidly Evangelical.
The question, then, is this: did I choose to become an Evangelical? The short answer is no. My religion (and politics) was chosen for me by my parents. From the 1960s to 2008, I was very much a part of the Evangelical church, its politics, and its subculture. Early on, the churches I attended were on the far right of the Evangelical spectrum. In the mid-1990s I abandoned the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement and embraced generic Evangelicalism with a Calvinistic twist. Towards the end of time in the ministry, I found myself on the other end of the Evangelical spectrum. If I had continued on the leftward path, I have no doubt that I would have left Evangelicalism altogether. I suspect the only thing that stopped me from doing so was my lack of education. Leaving Evangelicalism to pastor liberal/progressive Christian churches was of interest to me, but having three years of Bible college education with no post-college seminary training barred me from walking that path. And just as well, I suppose, because the more I studied and learned the more I doubted the central claims of Christianity. It was only a matter of time before I came to the conclusion that Christianity no longer made sense. (Please read The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.)
My parents were attend-church-three-times-a-week Evangelical Christians. From the age of five through the age of fifty, I attended Sunday worship services at the Evangelical churches our family called home. As a fifteen-year-old boy, I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, was baptized, and called into the ministry. For the next thirty-five years, I considered myself a God-called preacher. When I was a teenager, most of my friends were Evangelicals, and those who weren’t I tried to evangelize. Every girl I dated was an Evangelical. The college I attended was Evangelical. The girl I married was an Evangelical. Her parents and extended family were Evangelical. The six churches I pastored were Evangelical — IFB, Sovereign Grace Baptist, Christian Union, Non-denominational, Southern Baptist. All of my ministerial colleagues were Evangelical. In other words, I was, in every way, an Evangelical.
While I certainly made numerous choices as far as my theological beliefs and practices were concerned, I never strayed far, if at all, from the confines of the broad Evangelical tent. I may have thrown off the strictness of my IFB youth and early years in the ministry, but theologically I remained an Evangelical. Till the end, I believed the Bible was the Word of God. Till the end, I believed Jesus was the virgin-born, miracle-working, resurrected-from-the-dead son of the one true God. Till the end, I believed that Jesus was the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE. Till the end, I worshiped the triune God of Christianity. Till the end, I tried my best to live according to the commands, precepts, and laws of the Bible. Till the end, I modeled Christian faith to my children. Till the end, I was not ashamed to call myself a Christian.
As I look back over my life from a psychological and sociological perspective, it is evident that my religion was chosen for me; first by my parents and later by the pastors, teachers, church members, and friends I looked up to. No one ever suggested that faith might exist outside of Evangelicalism. No one ever recommended that I read the religious writings of other religions or consider whether Christianity was true. My life, in every way, was one long presupposition. Outlandish, irrational beliefs were accepted as facts because, well, everyone I knew believed these things. When your family, friends, pastors, and teachers all have the same beliefs (in a broad sense), it is unlikely that you are going to believe differently. At least, that was the case for me. As a true-blue believer, I was all-in. Even after my parents divorced and my entire family stopped attending church, I held on to the family God. In fact, I became more devoted to Jesus and his church. Is it any surprise that I was saved and called into the ministry the same year my parents divorced (and remarried)? I think not. In the church, I found a familial connection. In the church, I found purpose, meaning, and direction. No matter how much turmoil there was in my life, the church was always there for me. Well — until I said I was an atheist, anyway. THAT was a bridge too far, even for more “enlightened” Evangelicals.
Evangelicalism is bubble, the bubble where I found love and safety for many years. The beliefs and practices that now seem irrational, delusional, and psychologically harmful, made perfect sense to me as long as I remained in the bubble. When you grow up in and spend most of your life in a monoculture, it is hard to imagine life outside of the bubble. Danger, damnation, and hell await those who stray from the fold, I was told countless times, and I warned others of the same when I was a pastor. It was only when I dared to consider that the Bible might not be an inspired, inerrant, infallible text that I had thoughts of life outside of the bubble. I could be wrong, I thought. What if Christianity is not what I believed it to be all these years? What if all paths lead to God? What if no paths lead to God because there is no God? Questions pushed opened the door, and once it was open, I was free to wander and roam; free to read whatever I wanted; free to have non-Christian friends; free to love the world and the things of the world; free to finally, for myself, choose whether I wanted to be an Evangelical or whether I wanted to be a Christian. And the choice I made, of course, was NO, I don’t want to be an Evangelical; I don’t want to be a Christian. But even here I have to admit that, to some degree, this choice was forced upon me. I could have ignored the voices in my head and remained a Christian, but I chose, instead, to listen to questions and challenges percolating in my mind as I, for the first time, looked at Christianity with a skeptical, critical eye. And once I dared to accept the full weight of the implications of what I learned, my house of faith came tumbling down.
I have spent the last decade building a new house, one that sits on a foundation of reason, freethought, and the humanistic ideal. I didn’t choose to become an Evangelical. But I have now chosen to become a humanist. I feel liberated from the bondage of past beliefs, and while humanism is not the end-all Christianity professes to be, it does provide me a solid moral and ethical foundation by which to live my life. And here’s the good news, I am free to change and adapt as my thinking evolves, and no one is going to threaten me with humanist hell if I do. I can’t begin to express how wonderful it is to to ponder and think about what we call the big issues of life without fearing that I have offended the God or one of his earthly messengers. Simply put, I am free to be me.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 61, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 40 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.
Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section. If you are a first-time commenter, please read the commenting policy before wowing readers with your words. All first-time comments are moderated. If you would like to contact Bruce directly, please use the contact form to do so.
Donations are always appreciated. Donations on a monthly basis can be made through Patreon. One-time donations can be made through PayPal.
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
David English, pastor of New Hope Baptist Church in Clinton, South, Carolina, was arrested today on charges of second-degree domestic violence and unlawful conduct toward a child. English’s wife, Jennifer, was arrested on kidnapping charges after she disappeared with a two-month-old baby she was babysitting. According to WYFF, Jennifer English is a drug addict, and her husband, on occasion, has taken her to buy drugs.
Laurens County Sheriff Don Reynolds had this to say about the good pastor and his wife:
This was a terrible incident but, luckily, we found the baby before this turned out to be much more tragic than it already is. Hopefully, this lady will stay behind bars where she can’t put any more children in danger. As for Mr. English, this guy is a preacher, as well as a teacher in another county. It is very disturbing to think that someone in his position, which makes him a role model to our youth, would assist his wife in purchasing illegal drugs or would assault a woman. We will continue to incarcerate these types of violent offenders and put it in the hands of the prosecution.
New Hope Baptist Church is a King James-only Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation. The church has no active web presence. Its Facebook page was disabled after the public became aware of what was going on behind closed doors with their pastor and his wife.
Polly Gerencser, late 1990s, carrying water from the creek to flush the toilets. An ice storm had knocked out the power.
Those of us who grew up in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement are painfully aware of the seemingly countless rules and regulations — also known as standards — that we were expected to obey. (Please see An Independent Baptist Hate List.) In particular, we remember clothing standards. Much like the Amish and Mennonites, IFB congregants wore clothing that distinguished them from the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the “world.” Women were required to wear loose-fitting, long skirts and dresses. Tops were expected to cover breasts, with no cleavage or form exposed. Many churches regulated underwear, shoes, make-up, and jewelry. Women were not permitted to look like harlots; a harlot being any teen/woman who dared to expose her “flesh” or wear clothes that called attention to their shape. Men had fewer rules abide by: no shorts, no muscle shirts, no skinny jeans. For men, the bigger focus was on hair. Good Baptist boys/men were expected to keep their hair trimmed short, and facial hair was forbidden. (Please see Is it a Sin for a Man to Have Long Hair? and The Independent Baptist War Against Long Hair on Men.) Needless, to say, IFB congregants stood out in a crowd.
While many IFB churches have relaxed their standards over the years and are derided by purists for their worldliness, some churches still toe the line, demanding congregants obey the letter of the law. Several weeks ago. Polly and I were at the local Meijer store doing some shopping. Off in the distance I saw a woman wearing a long maxi-dress, six kids in tow. Spaced two years apart, the children each wore the appropriate Baptist uniform. The girls had long skirts and the boys had bowl-cut hair styles, complete with comb overs. Needless to say, they stood out. And that’s the point. IFB churches and pastors are to a large extent anti-culture. Their goal is to carve out a safe haven for Christians who want to keep themselves pure and untainted by the world. 1 John 2:15-17 says:
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
IFB adherents must venture out into the world for employment, shopping, and medical care, but outside of that church members are expected to live out their lives in the safe haven of the local church. Within its walls, congregants find safety and protection. IFB parents are strongly encouraged to either home school their children or send them to an approved Christian school. If students want to attend college, they are steered toward an approved — often unaccredited — Christian college. When it comes time to marry, they are expected to wed someone from an IFB church. All of these things are meant to protect them from the “world.”
As the mother and her children. came near, I whispered to Polly, just think that could have been us. She shook her head and said nothing. Both of us know how life would have been had we remained faithful, devoted followers of the IFB God (or the Evangelical God, for that matter). We truly feel sorry for people who are still deeply enmeshed in the IFB way of life. When you are in the IFB bubble, it all makes sense. Every rule/regulation/standard has a proof text. Living this way seems the right thing to do; that which is pleasing and honoring to God. However, once we were free from the bondage of the IFB church movement, we learned that we had been in a cult. And this is what saddens us the most. We have numerous family members, former friends, and one-time colleagues in the ministry, who are still busy going about separating themselves from the “world.” Little do they realize that the “world” is not the problem, their religion is.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 61, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 40 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.
Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section. If you are a first-time commenter, please read the commenting policy before wowing readers with your words. All first-time comments are moderated. If you would like to contact Bruce directly, please use the contact form to do so.
Donations are always appreciated. Donations on a monthly basis can be made through Patreon. One-time donations can be made through PayPal.
I recently asked readers to submit questions to me they would like me to answer. If you would like to submit a question, please follow the instructions listed here.
Ben asked, “One thing I’ve wondered about is those pastors who were against television. When they said that television was the destruction of America’s families, did they mean just the sexiest, most vile things on today, or television in general (the latter meaning that it was an immorality and sin, no matter how much sex or violence there was)?”
Few Evangelicals these days are totally anti-television. In fact, I suspect most Evangelicals watch the same programs unsaved people do, albeit with a lot more fear and guilt. Evangelical preachers still preach against what they deem immoral on TV. Societal acceptance of homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and living together alarms many Evangelicals. That these “sins” are portrayed as healthy and normal on countless TV programs concerns more than a few of God’s chosen ones, but come Sunday night, many of these same people will watch sexually perverse shows such as The Deuce or Game of Thrones. They might ask Jesus to forgive them for putting wicked things before their eyes, but come the next Sunday they will continue to imbibe in all things GOT and watch Eileen “Candy” Merrell (brilliantly played by Maggie Gyllenhaal) make porno flicks.
Groups such as the Parents Television Council, the American Family Association, and One Millions Moms are quite vocal about TV programming, but these fringe groups hardly represent the viewing habits of most American Christians. Generally, Evangelicals are quite conversant in modern culture. This reveals that they read the same books, visit the same websites (including YouPorn), and watch the same television programs as the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world.
I am sixty-one years old. I grew up in a day when Bonanza, Leave it to Beaver, The Rifleman, Gomer Pyle, and Bewitched, to name a few, were standard TV fare. I loved shows such as Rat Patrol, Hogan’s Heroes, and MASH. We have come a long way since these days. What was hidden subtly and or referenced with double entendres fifty years ago is now front and center. Evangelicals are correct when they say that things have changed and what was once only spoken of in secret is now on the TV screen for all to see. That said, we live in a day when TV programming is better than it ever has been. Thanks to companies such as HBO, Showtime, and AMC, we now have for our consumption thrilling first-rate programming. Yes, there’s a lot more sex and bloody violence, but that’s life, is it not? Hiding the fact that the character played by John Wayne had sex outside of the bond of marriage presents a warped view of the world. Humans have sex, lots of it. Heterosexuals and LGBTQ people alike have sex. Why not portray life as it is instead of pretending that everyone loves Jesus, is morally pure, and never says curse words?
What Evangelical preachers want is a return to the 1950s. They pine for the days of June and Ward Cleaver and their two sons. Fundamentalist to the core, these arbiters of morality want a black-and-white world where everything is defined by the teachings of the Bible. Those days are long gone, never to return. If Evangelicals don’t like what’s on hellivision, they can turn it off. It really is that simple. Or they can watch “Christian” television. There are scores of Evangelical/Catholic/Mormon television channels, yet most Christians never watch them. Why is that?
Let me conclude this post with an article I wrote in January of 2016. Titled, The Preacher and His TV, this post details the struggles and battles I had with television.
In the 1960s, when I was a child, my Dad would drop my siblings and me off at the Bryan Theater so we could watch the 25-cent Saturday afternoon matinee. But somewhere in my primary school years, going to movies became unacceptable. From that point forward, outside of attending a drive-in movie one time at age 18, I didn’t go to a movie theater again until I was in my late 30s. As a Christian, I believed that going to or renting movies was supporting Hollywood, an institution that I considered a den of iniquity.
In the late 1990s, having become more “liberal” in my thinking, I decided it was time for the Gerencser family to go to a movie. When I told Polly that we were all going to the drive-in to see a movie, she was appalled. She literally thought that God was going to strike us dead. Well here we are, all these years later, still among the living. Evidently, God didn’t seem to care about us going to the drive-in. By the way, the first hardcore, violent, nudity-laden movie we saw was George of the Jungle! The Second? Air Bud.
I grew up in a home that always had a television. My Mom told me one time that American Bandstand was my babysitter. The first memory I have about television is watching the Beatles first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. I remember my Dad coming home with what I later in life called the “poor man’s color TV.” It was a colored, plastic sheet that Dad taped to the TV screen. The top of the sheet was blue and the bottom was green. Supposedly, the screen was meant to simulate sky and grass. Dad wasn’t impressed and we quickly went back to watching black and white TV. The Gerencser family didn’t own a color television until sometime in the 1970s.
My wife and I married in 1978. One of our first purchases was a used tube console color TV that we purchased from Marv Hartman TV in Bryan, Ohio. We paid $125. We continued to watch TV for a few years, until one day I decided that watching TV was a sin. This was in the mid-1980s. After swearing off watching TV, I decided that no one, if he were a good Christian anyway, should be watching television. One Sunday, as pastor of Somerset Baptist Church in Mt Perry, Ohio, I preached a 90-minute sermon on the evils of watching television and going to the movies. I called on all true Christians to immediately get rid of their TVs and follow their preacher into the pure air of a Hollywood-free world.
To prove my point, I gathered the congregation out in front of the church for a physical demonstration of my commitment to following the TV-hating Jesus. I put our TV in the church yard and I hit it several times with a sledge-hammer, breaking the TV into pile of electronic rubble. Like the record burnings of the 1970s, my act was meant to show that I was willing to do whatever it took to be an on-fire, sold-out follower of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
Just before I hit the TV with the sledge-hammer, a church member by the name of Gary said to me, Hey preacher, if you don’t want that TV I’ll take it. How dare he ruin my sin-hating demonstration! I thought at the time. I gave Gary a scowling look and proceeded to knock the devil right out of the TV. I am happy to report that not one church member followed in my TV-hating footsteps. What church members did do is make sure that their televisions were OFF when the man of God made an appearance at their home.
In the early 1990s, I would, from time to time, rent a television from a local rent-to-own business. Two times come to mind: the World Series and the 1991 Gulf War. Outside of that, my oldest three children grew up in a television-free home. They were teenagers: 18, 16, and 13, before they watched TV (except for watching Saturday cartoons when they were little). Well, this isn’t entirely true. When they visited their grandparents, they were permitted to watch TV (even though I wasn’t happy about them doing so). Like Amish children, they were mesmerized by Disney movies and cartoons.
After our family attended their first movie, I decided I would buy a television, setting in motion seven years of what any competent psychologist would call bizarre behavior. While what I am about to share will sound hilarious to those who never spent any time in Christian Fundamentalism, at the time, there was nothing humorous about my actions.
From 1998 through 2005, I purchased and got rid of at least six television sets. I gave one TV to the local crisis pregnancy center. I also gave one set to my son. The rest I sold at a loss. Why all the televisions? you might ask. Simple. After watching TV for a time, like a moth to a flame, I was drawn towards watching shows that I promised God I would never watch. Dear Lord, I promise I will only watch G or PG rated programming, and if there is any nudity, cursing, or gore I will immediately turn off the TV. No matter how much I wanted to be holy and righteous, I found that I loved watching programs that contained things that I considered sin.
My “sinning’ would go on for a few weeks until the guilt would become so great that I would say to God, you are right God. This is sin. I will get rid of the TV and I promise to never, never watch it again. Out the TV would go, but months later I would get the hankering to watch TV again and I would, unbeknownst to Polly, go buy a television.
It is clear now that my beliefs made me mentally and emotionally unstable. I so wanted to be right with God and live a life untainted by the world, yet I loved to watch TV. One time, after I came to the decision to get rid of yet another TV, Polly arrived home from work and found me sitting on the steps of the porch, crying and despondent. I hated myself. I hated that I was so easily led astray by Satan. I hated that I was such a bad testimony. Look at ALL that Jesus did for me! Couldn’t I, at the very least, go without watching TV for the sake of the kingdom of God?
I have written before about my perfectionist tendencies. I wanted to be the perfect Christian. God’s Word said to abstain from the very appearance of evil. Psalm 101:3 was a driving force in my life: “I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.” Television was a wicked thing, I told myself, yet I continued to battle with my desire to watch sports and other programs on TV. Needless to say, the advent of internet, brought into our home a new way for me to be tempted to sin against the thrice holy God I pledged to serve, even unto death. I’m sure that my children will remember me putting a sign above our computer that quoted Psalm 101:3. This was meant as a reminder that we should NEVER view inappropriate, sinful things on the internet.
My three oldest children, now in their 30s, continue to rib me about my TV-crazed days. One of them will periodically ask if I am ready to get rid of our flat-screen TV. Their good-natured ribbing hails back to the day when their Dad acted like a psycho, buying and selling televisions. At the time, I am sure they thought I was crazy, and I wouldn’t blame them if they did.
Where was Polly in all of this, you ask? She was the dutiful, submissive wife who believe her God-called, on-fire, sold-out Christian pastor of a husband knew best. Polly rarely watched TV, so having one didn’t matter to her. I was the one who “needed” to watch TV. As I now psychoanalyze this period of my life, I think watching TV was my way of being normal. Serving a sin-hating God and preaching to others a rigorous morality meant that I had to live a Christ-honoring, sin-free life. Again, in light of the atoning work of Jesus on my behalf, I thought that forsaking the pleasure of the “world” was but a small price to pay for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life. Yet, I wanted to be like everyone else, so I would come home after a long day of studying for my sermons and visiting church members, and leave God sitting on the front porch. Watching TV was my way of unwinding after work days which were often 12 hours long. While I still was selective about what I watched, my attempts to avoid “sinful” viewing rarely kept me from watching whatever I wanted to watch, especially after the children went to bed. Over time, my guilt levels would increase, ultimately leading to the behaviors outlined in this post.
In 2006, eighteen months before I deconverted, I finally put an end to my battle with the television. I decided, God be damned, I was going to own a TV and watch whatever I wanted to watch. From that point forward, we have owned a TV. While I have continued to buy televisions, my purchases are driven by resolution, refresh rate, and screen size, and not the thought that God was going to strike me dead for seeing a naked woman on TV. (We now own two televisions: a 43-inch and 32-inch LED Vizio TV.)
Several years ago, as we were watching an episode of True Blood, I turned to Polly and said, who would of thought that we would be sitting here watching bloody, naked vampires having sex? We laughed together, both grateful that the preacher had finally been delivered from the demon of TV.
Note
List of article and videos about the sin of watching hellivision and going to the movies. This list was compiled by a devoted follower of the late Jack Hyles.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 61, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 40 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.
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I recently asked readers to submit questions to me they would like me to answer. If you would like to submit a question, please follow the instructions listed here.
ObstacleChick asked, “Did You Understand the Trinity?” OC also asked, “If God the Father is an incorporeal spirit, what’s the need for another incorporeal spirit, the Holy Spirit/Ghost?
Most Christians are Trinitarians, believing that God is three persons in one, each equal with the other. Some Christian sects — deemed heretics by Trinitarians — believe, as God’s chosen people, the Jews, do, that God is one. Battles have historically been fought and continue to be fought over Trinitarianism, but most Christians believe the God they worship consists of God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit. Ask them to explain their belief, most Christians will give you a blank look and say, it’s a mystery. The reason for this is that nowhere in the Bible does it say that God is a triune being. In fact, outside of 1 John 5:7: For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one, there is not one verse in the Bible about the Trinity (and 1 John 5:7 is considered by many scholars to be a scribal addition to the text). Bart Ehrman says of the text:
As it turns out, the three passages are handled differently. The first, the affirmation of the doctrine of the Trinity (1 John 5:7-8), is not in any of our most ancient manuscripts at all. It shows up in one manuscript of the fourteenth century, one of the fifteenth, another of the sixteenth, and finally one of the eighteenth. Yes, that’s right, the eighteenth. Scribes were producing manuscripts long after the invention of printing (just as my students today take notes with pen and paper, even though they all own laptops). It can be found in the margins of four other, equally late, manuscripts, as a possible variant reading. The result, though, is that no one except the most avid fundamentalist thinks that the verses have any claim to belong to the “original” text of the New Testament.
ObstacleChick asks if, as a pastor, I understood the doctrine of the Trinity? Of course not. No Evangelical pastor truly understands the doctrine. It’s a mystery, pastors tell congregants, but true nonetheless. That’s one answer, but I can think of another one: Christians actually worship three Gods; thus they are polytheists (or henotheists), and not monotheists. Maintaining Trinitarianism requires all sorts of Bible gymnastics. Pull a verse from this book and a verse from another book, and there ya have it, God is triune being. Evangelicals will object to my characterization here, but none will dare to argue otherwise because outside of a stream of disconnected proof texts, there’s no Biblical proof for the notion that the Christian God is a triune being.
In closing, consider 1 Corinthians 15: 24-28:
Then cometh the end, when he [Jesus, the son] shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.
If Jesus, the Son is equal in power and substance to God, the Father and God, the Holy Spirit, why then does he subject himself in an inferior way to the Father? Perhaps Jesus was a created being; that there was a time when he did not exist; that God, the Father created him (much like Satan) so he could come to earth and show humans through violence that God had a wonderful plan for their lives, and now that it is MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, Jesus, the man, the myth, and the legend is no longer needed.
Evangelicals would have you believe the Bible narrative is a cohesive, perfect masterpiece. It is, however, a hopelessly contradictory book, and while Trinitarianism can be inferred from its pages, so can polytheism and henotheism. In this sense, the Bible is a book that just keeps on giving, endless in its fanciful doctrines stories. ObstacleChick’s second question only illustrates this point. If God, the Father is a spirit, when then is there a need for God, the Holy Spirit? Seems like a waste of a God to me.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 61, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 40 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve 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. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.
Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section. If you are a first-time commenter, please read the commenting policy before wowing readers with your words. All first-time comments are moderated. If you would like to contact Bruce directly, please use the contact form to do so.
Donations are always appreciated. Donations on a monthly basis can be made through Patreon. One-time donations can be made through PayPal.
Recently, I was back in the Bible Belt where I grew up, as I dropped my daughter off for her first year of college in Nashville. I was raised in a Southern Baptist church and attended a Fundamentalist Christian school, but I started moving away from those doctrines at age eighteen when my church started teaching complementarianism (then called Biblical manhood and womanhood). Going to a secular university opened up other ideas to me to which I had not been exposed, and I was able to move away physically and literally from Christian Fundamentalism. My husband was raised nominally Catholic, and we attended progressive Christian church for a while before we both shifted into agnostic atheism. Our children have not been raised with any religious indoctrination, and when my daughter indicated that she wanted to attend university in the South, I thought it would be important to let her know what Evangelical Christians believe so that she wouldn’t be shocked when she found out that some of our family members still believe this way and that some people she encounters in Tennessee may hold these views.
My parents divorced when I was little, and my mom remarried and had another child. My brother is twelve years younger than I am, and his upbringing was quite different from mine. I lived with my grandparents — he lived with his mom and dad. I was sent to private Christian school — he attended public school after he was expelled from the private Christian school in third grade (yes, expelled in third grade; he mouthed off to the teacher and to the principal). My mom and stepdad moved to a different town after I graduated from college, and they left the Southern Baptist Church, eventually ending up at an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church. My brother and his wife and two sons do not attend church. Instead, my brother is part of a Skype men’s prayer and Bible study group, and he reads a lot of Christian books and watches live stream and YouTube sermons. Every night before bed, he teaches and prays with his sons, and he spends time on his own praying before bed. He also posts a lot of Bible verses and links to very conservative Christian articles and YouTube videos on social media; with that evidence, I am confident that he still believes many aspects of Fundamentalist Christianity. I am not sure what my sister-in-law believes, but I don’t get the impression she is as devout as my brother. My brother knows that we are not Bible literalists at all, and he knows that we expose our kids to a lot more of “the world” than he does, but I have not used the “A” word around him yet. He probably thinks we are apostates but still somehow under the umbrella of God. I think he doesn’t ask specifics because he doesn’t want to know, and I don’t bring it up because I don’t want him to excommunicate me from the family.
On our long drive from Tennessee back to New Jersey, my husband asked me if my brother believes that we are going to Hell. I told my husband that I am not sure what my brother knows or believes about our religiosity, but it’s certainly a possibility that he might think one or more of us is bound for Hell. According to the doctrines in which we were brought up, I am of the “once saved always saved” crowd, so he probably believes that I am apostate but not necessarily bound for the Lake of Fire. I’m not sure if my brother knows that my husband was Catholic, but he may believe that somehow through my influence my husband is “saved” and that I probably made sure the children “got saved” too. My brother made sure his children said the “Sinner’s Prayer” and he baptized the boys in the bathtub (because somehow that’s allowed, I guess). My husband asked what the “Sinner’s Prayer” is, and I told him it’s some version of admitting that one is a sinner, that one repents of his or her sin, accepts that Jesus is the virgin-born son of God who died for our sins, was buried, resurrected, and ascended to heaven. One must accept that humans are all bound for Hell unless they have accepted the saving grace of Jesus. My husband naively stated, “Oh, it’s like the Creed we stated at church every Sunday.” I said, “Ummmm…sort of — it’s more of a one-and-done statement that you really, really, really have to mean for it to take. And then you get baptized. If it all takes, then you’re ‘saved’ from Hell.”
My husband stated that if my brother and his wife thought there was a possibility that we were bound for Hell, he is hurt and offended that they have not once tried to proselytize to him to make sure. Honestly, I was surprised by his statement, but I can understand why he would feel that way. If you truly believe that someone you care about is in danger of spending eternity in the Lake of Fire – or even if you are an annihilationist and believe that anyone sentenced to Hell immediately ceases to exist — why would you not try to warn that person before it is too late?
I explained to my husband that in Evangelical Christianity, there is great emphasis placed on “witnessing” or proselytizing. Remember the “Great Commission” in Matthew 28:19,20:
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
Some Evangelical Christians actively proselytize, verbally witnessing to people they meet or know. Some take a more passive approach, either by wearing Christian-themed clothing, posting Christian-themed signs on their property or vehicles, or decorating their office space with Christian-themed items. Some people make it their life’s vocation, becoming pastors or missionaries. But many (perhaps most?) Evangelicals do not “witness” at all. When I was an Evangelical, I did not actively witness to people. Everyone I knew at school and at church was already “saved.” I worked in a university biochemistry laboratory as a teenager and college student, and I was too intimidated to try to initiate a religious discussion with my coworkers, as all of them had at least a bachelor’s degree, most had doctorates, and I was not as educated as they. Honestly, I felt that Fundamentalist Christianity was a sect for the uneducated, and I assumed my coworkers probably thought so as well.
In any case, I was glad to make it through a trip to Tennessee without people preaching to me about their brand of religion, though I did see my fair share of Christian-themed road signs, T-shirts, and home decor in stores. A lot of people in Tennessee love Jesus!
What are your thoughts on proselytizing? Are you glad when people do not proselytize you, or do you consider that they do not care about you enough to try to witness to you so you escape eternity in Hell or annihilation after death? Did you attempt to proselytize when you were an Evangelical Christian? Why or why not?
The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Kevin “Scott” Heffner, pastor of Victory Baptist Church in Ruffin, North Carolina, is behind bars tonight, charged with more than a dozen sex crimes. Held on a $1 million bond, Heffner is charged with “12 counts of disseminating obscene materials and two counts of statutory sex offense.”
Victory Baptist also operates a private Christian school on its premises, Victory Baptist Academy. Heffner is its principal. There is little public information available about Heffner or his church. Victory’s Facebook page has been made private.
We are an independant [sic] and fundamentally based church in Ruffin, North Carolina. We are a unique congregation with a message of hope and a burden to reach the lost. We believe the King James Bible is the inspired word of God and the final authority of our faith.
According to the church’s YouTube channel, Heffner is a “Dr.” I think it is safe to assume that Heffner’s doctorate either comes from an unaccredited college or is honorary. I am sure there is an IFB preacher out there somewhere with an earned doctorate from an accredited institution, I just haven’t met one.
Here is Heffner preaching on the subject, “Baptized with Fire.”
According to Private School Review, Victory Baptist Academy uses Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) as their primary method of instruction and has twenty-two students.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Guest Post by ObstacleChick
