Repost from 2015. Edited, rewritten, and corrected.
Back in the late 1980s, I did a lot of street preaching in places such as Newark, Zanesville, and Lancaster, Ohio. One day, while I was preaching on the courthouse sidewalk in Newark, two Mormon missionaries came up to me and wanted to talk. I said, fine, as long as we limit our discussion to the King James Bible. They told me they couldn’t do that because the King James Bible AND The Book of Mormon were both authoritative. Because I was unwilling to accept their assertion that The Book of Mormon was authoritative, there was no point in them trying to talk to me. These missionaries presupposed that The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ and the King James Bible were both God’s word. Unless I was willing to accept their presuppositions, no meaningful discussion could take place. So it is with Evangelicals who demand that I accept the Protestant Bible as authoritative.
Over the years, numerous Evangelicals have come to this blog and tried to use THE BIBLE SAYS argument to show me the error of my way. Bruce, it says _________________ right here in John, Romans, Acts, James, Revelation, Genesis, Jude, or Concordance. They assume (presuppose) that I accept the Bible as authoritative; that I accept the Bible as the standard for truth. I don’t, and neither do most of the people who read regularly this blog. These defenders of the Holy Evangelical Faith® fail to understand that I have studied the history of the Bible and the claims it makes, coming to the conclusion that the Bible is not an authoritative book; that it is not in any way a supernatural or divine text. At best, it is a collection of books written by unknown authors trying to explain their understanding of the world. If Evangelicals understood this rather than asserting that the Bible is an inerrant, inspired, infallible book, we might be able to have a meaningful discussion. Instead, they pull the Bible out of the bookcase and demand that it be treated as THE book above all books. They demand the Bible be accepted as THE truth above all truth. I reject this assertion. The Bible is not superior to any other literary work. In fact, as far as literature goes, the Bible leaves a lot to be desired.
No matter how loudly someone says THE BIBLE SAYS it carries no weight with me. Why should I grant the Bible the authority Evangelicals claim for it? Well, because THE BIBLE SAYS! Exactly. This is circular reasoning, and this is why it’s impossible to have thoughtful, rational conversations with Evangelicals. THE BIBLE SAYS lots of things modern Christians no longer believe. No Evangelical is really one-hundred-percent THE BIBLE SAYS. I don’t know of an Evangelical pastor, evangelist, missionary, deacon, Sunday school teacher, or pew warmer who believes and practices every word of the inerrant, inspired, infallible Word of God. All Evangelicals develop their own method of interpretation, and with this system inconvenient or difficult verses are explained away or reinterpreted. What Evangelicals really consider authoritative is their own personal interpretation and opinion. This is why I think there’s no such thing as the faith which was once delivered to the saints or one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, One God. Two thousand years removed from the death of Jesus, what we have is not Christianity in the singular sense, but Christianities, with every Evangelical having his or her own understanding of Christianity and the teachings of the Bible.
If every Christian believed the same things, I might pause to consider the validity of Christianity. However, it is evident, at least to me, when Christians appeal to the Bible what they are really appealing to is personal opinion and interpretation.
Did you grow up in or attend a church that stressed THE BIBLE SAYS thinking? How did your pastor handle conflicts over what, exactly, the Bible said? Please share your experiences in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and 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.
Repost from 2015. Edited, rewritten, and corrected.
Several years ago, a fundamentalist Christian by the name of James commented on several of my posts on this site and on Facebook. James, a seminary-trained Baptist, is convinced I hate God, hate Christians, hate the Bible, and live for the opportunity to mock and ridicule Christianity.
James describes himself this way:
I am a man “of the book.” I am a man of faith. My entire life is governed by my faith in an unseen God. Hebrews 11:6 says “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” My entire life falls under the authority of the Word of God. No surprise there! And because my life is governed by God’s Word, I live a holy and godly life.
According to James, his entire life is under the authority of the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. God said it, and that settles it, and the real problem with atheists such as I is that we refuse to bow before the power and authority of the Bible. “One day,” James warned, “there will be a day of reckoning and judgment by that man (Jesus) whom God hath appointed to be the judge. And on that day, you WILL bow the knee and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord!”
I’m sure James really believes what he is saying. However, does James really govern his life by the word of God? Does he really believe every word in the Bible is pure and true? I’m sure if James reads this post he will shout from the rooftops, I BELIEVE EVERY WORD IN THE BIBLE . . . STRAIGHT FROM GOD’S MOUTH TO MY EAR AND HEART!!!
What follows is how a conversation between Bruce, the atheist, and James, the pastor might have gone . . .
Bruce: Every book, every chapter, every verse, every word?
James: Yes, the Bible says in Leviticus 18:22 that homosexuality is an abomination.
Bruce: So, you support the execution of homosexuals? Leviticus 20:13 says homosexuals should be put to death. And Leviticus 20:10 says adulterers should be put to death. Do you support the execution of homosexuals and adulterers?
James: Well, you see . . . that’s in the Old Testament, so those verses are under the Old Covenant. We are under the New Covenant now. Praise God for his grace and mercy!
Bruce: Where does the Bible say it is no longer in force?
James: Well, you see, it doesn’t, but if you take this verse, that verse, and a few others, and put them together with these verses, and then interpret it through the proper theological grid . . . viola! the command to remember the sabbath day and keep it holy is no longer in force.
Bruce: Didn’t Jesus say in Matthew 5:17-18: “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.” It seems to me that Jesus is saying the law of God is in force (valid, authoritative) until heaven and earth pass away. I just went outside and checked . . . heaven and earth are still here.
James: Well, you see, the Scripture must be rightly interpreted. You are interpreting it incorrectly and that’s why your beliefs are wrong. I interpret it correctly and that’s why my beliefs are right.
Bruce: I thought you were a man of the book, that you stand upon the B-I-B-L-E!
James: I do.
Bruce: Not really. If you were a man of the book, why would you need to interpret it? Aren’t you really saying that you are a man of a certain interpretation and that your interpretation of the Bible is the authority?
James: Pfft. You are putting words in my mouth.
Bruce: Let’s move on to the New Testament.
James: (under breath) Thank you, Jesus!
Bruce: So, you consider all the commands in the New Testament to be true and authoritative?
James: Absolutely!
Bruce: According to the Christian Assemblies International website, there are 1,050 commands in the 27 books of the New Testament. According to what you said previously, do you consider all 1,050 commands authoritative?
James: Yes, they are the Word of God.
Bruce: Do the women in the church you attend speak during the service?
James: That’s a silly question. Of course, they do.
Bruce: I Corinthians 14:34 says, “Let your women keep silence in the churches: for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience, as also saith the law.” This verse says women are not permitted to speak in the church.
James: Well, you see, you need to understand the historical and cultural context to properly interpret this verse.
Bruce: So, we are back to interpreting again. I thought you were a man of the book? Shouldn’t someone be able to pick up the Bible, read it, and understand it? If people wanted to be saved, could they just pick up the Bible, read it, and understand what they need to do to be saved?
James: Absolutely! I hand out tracts with Bible verses on them. If a person reads these verses, they will know all they need to know about being saved.
Bruce: Hmm . . . okay. Does a person need to be baptized to be saved?
Bruce: Doesn’t Mark 16 say he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved?
James: Well, you see . . .
Bruce: Does a person receive the Holy Spirit when they are saved?
James: Yes, they do. The Holy Spirit lives in every Christian. He is their teacher and guide! He is the third part of the Godhead.
Bruce: So there are three G . . . (stop, Bruce, stay on point) Sorry about that. If someone is saved, but not baptized, do they have the Holy Spirit living inside of them?
James: Yes, but they should be baptized as soon as possible. Baptism is an outward sign of what God has done on the inside.
Bruce: Doesn’t Acts 2:38 say: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost”? This seems to say a person must be baptized before they receive the Holy Spirit.
James: Well, you see, the word “for” in the Greek is “eis” and it means “because of.” In other words, a person is baptized because their sins have been remitted, not in order to have their sins remitted.
Bruce: So, to understand the Bible you need to know Greek?
James: (silence)
Bruce: I thought a person could just read the English Bible and understand how to be saved? Now you are saying they need to understand Greek?
James: Well Greek is the original language of the New Testament.
Bruce: Wait a minute. There’s a Greek New Testament that came before the English New Testament?
James: Yes, and the Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew.
Bruce: So, which words are the pure and perfect Word of God? The English or the Hebrew and Greek?
James: (launches into a long explanation about the original languages and translations)
Bruce: OK, where can I read these original manuscripts?
James: They don’t exist.
Bruce: What do you mean they don’t exist? Doesn’t this mean your faith is in a translation written by men, and not the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God?
James: Absolutely not! We can KNOW that the English Bible is the pure and perfect Word of God. God preserves his Word down through the ages.
Bruce: And you know this HOW?
James: The Bible says . . .
I could go on and on and on in endless directions with this fictitious dialog between James and me. As I have easily shown, James’ belief in the Bible requires him to interpret the text, so what is really pure and perfect is not the Bible, but his interpretation. Whatever translation James uses has the fingerprints of man all over it. Since the original manuscripts no longer exist, James can’t be certain that the extant manuscripts contain the exact words of God, and he can’t be certain the translation he uses contains in perfect form the exact words of God. Instead of saying THUS SAITH THE LORD, James should say, THUS SAITH THE IMPERFECT BIBLE, AS INTERPRETED BY JAMES, THE PASTOR.
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.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
It’s usually Evangelical Christians who want to know if I have, with an “unbiased mind and open heart,” read the Bible. When I tell them that I was in the Christian church for fifty years, attended an Evangelical Bible college, pastored Independent Fundamentalist Baptist, Southern Baptist, Sovereign Grace Baptist, Christian Union, and nondenominational churches for twenty-five years, and read and studied the Bible for every day for most my adult life, they are perplexed and confused. How could someone devote themselves to inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God and end up an atheist? The very thought of this leaves many Evangelicals walking around like robots, saying “does not compute, does not compute, does not compute.”
Some Evangelicals are unwilling to accept “reality,” so they make up reasons for why someone such as myself could immerse himself in the pages of the precious, holy, wonderful pure Word of God and yet come away an unbeliever. In their minds, the Bible has magical powers. Former Evangelicals have heard preachers say countless times, “just pick up the Bible, read the gospel of John, First John, and Romans, and you will know everything you need to know to become a Christian!” “Read and believe” is the message. Evangelicals believe that if unbelievers will just honestly and openly read the Bible, the Holy Spirit will show them the truth about God, life, sin, judgment, salvation, death, Heaven, Hell, and eternal life. What they never say is, “Start at Genesis and read the Bible from cover to cover.” Taking this approach usually kills any hope of conversion by the time unbelieving readers get to Numbers or Chronicles. It’s important that unbelievers read just the “right” verses, and not get sidetracked by the “hard” passages that will be explained after they have purchased a membership. You know, the fine print that reveals that the true Evangelical gospel is “believe and do the right things and ye shall be saved.”
So, in the minds of many Evangelicals, I am an atheist today because I didn’t have an “unbiased mind and open heart” when I read the Bible — as if there is any such thing as an unbiased mind. Years ago, a former congregant wrote to me and said that my loss of faith was due to books. Yes, books. I had read too many books and that’s why I lost my faith. She suggested that I stop reading books and just read the Bible. If I would do so, she was confident that I would soon return to Evangelical Christianity and pastoring churches.
Every once in a while, Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox zealots — both of whom believe that their club is the one true club — will contact me and ask me to study the teachings of Catholicism or Orthodoxy with an “unbiased mind and open heart,” believing that if I humbly do so, I will see the “truth.” Again, what I “hear” from such zealots is that their flavor of ice cream is the one true ice cream. However, when I look at the ice cream case, all I see is ice cream. Sure, I see different brands, ingredients, flavors, and packaging, but it’s all still ice cream.
Occasionally, I will a have a Muslim zealot contact me:
Peace be upon you Bruce,
Not sure how I stumbled to your blog, but I did. I like your style of writing. Direct and to the point.
I just curious to know if you are willing to (or maybe you have already) read the Qu’ran and put it to the test through your logical and analytical brain. The only requirements it demands, is an unbiased mind and open heart. I am not sure how you feel about these .
Anyway, I would appreciate an answer from you someday, if you find this of interest to you. If not, please disregard and I apologize for bothering you.
Thank you.
This worshipper of Allah asks me to use my “logical and analytical brain” to read the Qu’ran, testing whether its teachings are true. He asks that I use “an unbiased mind and open heart” in this endeavor. What’s left unsaid in his email is that he is confident that if will do these things, that I will soon find myself bowing towards Mecca five times a day praying to Allah. That I don’t buy a prayer rug and devote myself to Allah and Qu’ran will, I am sure, be evidence to him that I did not use my “logical and analytical brain” to read the Qu’ran with “an unbiased mind and open heart.”
You see, the fact that I am not an Evangelical, Catholic, Orthodox, or a Muslim is proof to zealots of said religions that I am unwilling to honestly and openly accept, believe, and practice the teaching of their respective holy books. The books or the religions or the zealots are never to blame, I am. If only I would set aside my commitment to skepticism, rationalism, and intellectual inquiry, I would see and understand the “truth” — their truth. “But, Bruce, aren’t these zealots inviting you on a journey of intellectual inquiry?” On the face of the matter, it may seem that way, but really what zealots are asking me to do is go to the New York Public Library with its 53,000,000 books (and other items) and only select one book to read. True intellectual inquiry leads down many rows to different shelves, each containing a plethora of books that give light to my search for truth. Zealots want to box me in with only their divine book to read, warning me that failing to come to the proper theological conclusions will lead to eternal damnation. True intellectual inquiry says to me, “enjoy the journey.” I could no more limit my reading to one book than I could to limit my TV viewing to one channel. Think about all the wonderful programs I would have missed had I only watched CBS, and never watched HBO, Showtime, Starz, AMC, PBS, USA, Food Network, HGTV, History, Daystar, Nat Geo, FX, IFC, or SyFy. (One of these channels I NEVER watch. Can you guess which one?) We live in a golden age of TV programming. And so it is with books, websites, and blogs. So much awesome information is available to anyone willing to read. Why, in the name of Jehovah, Jesus, and Allah would I want to limit my inquiries to one book?
The path from religious bondage to freedom is paved with books. When Evangelicals want to quarrel with me over my contention that the Bible is not what they claim it is — a perfect supernaturally written text — the first thing I ask them is whether they have read any of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books. Some Evangelicals will lie, saying that they have “read” Ehrman. This usually means that they have read blogs, websites, or book reviews that supposedly refute Dr. Ehrman’s claims. I am convinced his books are the single best antidote to Evangelical beliefs about the nature, history, and text of the Bible. Disabuse Evangelicals of the notion that the Bible is inerrant and infallible, they will never look at Christianity the same way again.
Books, be they in printed or digital form, remain the most powerful tools in our arsenal. Blogs and websites have their place, but get zealots to sit down and read books outside of their theological rut, and you will likely change them forever.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 62, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 41 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.
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It is also plain that the inspiration of Scripture extends to every part of it. Even its historic records must be treated in the same way as its doctrinal statements. In fact, we can draw no line of separation between the two here, for some of the most important views of divine truth which the Bible contains, are embodied in the incidents which it narrates.
If we may not, then, speak of inspired facts, it is nevertheless evident that divine wisdom was needed by those who record these facts, lest they should be so stated as to intercept or obscure the light of divine truth which was let in upon the world in this way.
Nor can it be denied that divine wisdom was also needed for the selection of the facts which were to be recorded. In one word, we must recognize, from the first page of Scripture to the last, the presence of the Spirit of God, not destroying the individuality of the writers, but superintending its actings, prompting the communications which it was needful to make, restraining them from those which would have marred the design of their revelations, letting mind meet mind in the sacred page, and yet so pervading every portion with heavenly wisdom and divine grace, as to make the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, a volume which is all given by inspiration of God.
— Alexander MacEwan, ‘The Revelation Embodied in Scripture Supernatural, as Contradistinguished from the Productions of merely Human Thought and Genius’ in Patrick Fairbairn et al., Divine Revelation Explained and Vindicated: A Course of Lectures for the Times, Delivered in Glasgow in the Spring of 1866
And so the personal question that I struggle with a good deal. OK, this is really highly personal, it’s just me. But I often feel sad about being seen as an “enemy” of the Christian faith. People tell me I am all the time – both people who despise me and people who are rooting me on. Yet the views I put out there for public scrutiny are almost NEVER things that I’ve come up with myself, that I’ve dreamt up, that I’m trying to push on others with no evidence or argument – just crazy liberal ideas I’ve come up with to lead people away from the faith.
So why am I an enemy?
Of course I know why, and my views were given additional support last week, at the international meeting of New Testament scholars I attended in Marburg. I was talking with a German scholar about advanced training in biblical studies in Germany these days, and he told me that in German theological schools (in his experience), students simply are not as a rule very interested in the historical study of the New Testament per. The kinds of historical issues we deal with on the blog are simply not pressing matters for them. These are not why they are in theological training, either to teach or to minister in churches.
Instead, he indicated, the ONE question / issue that most of these students have is: “How can I be Christian in this increasingly secular world?”
Of course they are interested in historical knowledge – but it’s not what’s driving them. Instead it is an existential question about faith. That makes so much sense. It is what was driving me at that stage too. But when this fellow scholar told me that, I realized even more clearly why I get so much opposition, even in some learned circles.
Most of the people who are in the business of studying the Bible are committed to faith. That’s what generates their interest. And these days it is very hard. Christians are under attack. From science, from philosophy, from the neo-atheists, from a society/culture that increasingly doesn’t care. And the problem with someone like me is that I’m not helping the cause. On the contrary, I’m not just someone from the outside taking potshots at this faith. I’m someone who came from within it, and left it, with good reasons, and who argues views that are taken by people in the wider culture to be “evidence” that the faith has no good rational basis. Even though I disagree with that assessment (since I know full well that people can be devout believers but still agree with everything I say) (not that anyone agrees with everything I say) (sometimes I don’t agree with everything I say…) – even though I disagree with that assessment, I get it.
Christians – even Christian scholars – want to cling on to their faith, to cherish it, and promote it, and what they see as negative assaults on the basis of their faith is threatening, especially – this is the key point – if it comes from someone who is outside the community of faith but who used to be inside it and understands the views of those who are still inside it extremely well, but who now rejects these views. And says things that can lead others to reject them as well.
— Dr. Bart Ehrman, Who is the Enemy?, August 9, 2019
If the Bible is wrong, I’m wrong about the origins of this world. The Bible tells me that it was created by God over the course of six days and not nearly as long ago as the millions of billions of years other people claim.
….
If the Bible is wrong, I’m wrong about the origins of humanity. The Bible tells me that the first two human beings were created by God and placed on this earth as complete, grown human beings, not that they evolved slowly from lesser organisms.
….
If the Bible is wrong, I’m wrong about the purpose of humanity. The Bible tells me that mankind was put on this earth to bring glory to God. We exist to do good for others which in turn shines a spotlight on our ultimately good God. This stands in the face of a mission of personal empowerment or human achievement.
If the Bible is wrong, I’m wrong about the purpose of family. The Bible tells me that marriage exists to serve as a miniature of the relationship of God to his people through the complementarity of husband and wife.
….
If the Bible is wrong, I’m wrong about the great problem and the great need of human beings. The Bible tells me our great problem is that we’ve sinned against a holy God, become rebels against him, and desperately need reconciliation. We are not good people who make the occasional poor choice, not innocent people who sometimes act ignorantly, but evil people who hate God and our fellow man. Our great need is not self-esteem or tolerance or new forms of politics or economics, but the forgiveness that comes by grace through faith in Christ Jesus.
If the Bible is wrong, I’m wrong about the future. The Bible tells me that history will culminate in the return of Jesus Christ who will come to judge the living and the dead. The world will not end with ecological catastrophe or nuclear holocaust, but with the re-appearance of the glorious Christ.
….
If the Bible is wrong, I’m wrong about today’s most pressing cultural issues: homosexuality, gay marriage, transgenderism, abortion, climate change. If the Bible is wrong, I’m wrong about today’s most pressing theological issues: the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the nature of same-sex attraction, the authority and sufficiency of scripture. If the Bible is wrong, I’m wrong in how I relate to money, how I honor my body, how I use my time. I’m wrong over and over, again and again, through and through. I’m poor, pathetic, pitiable, and blind.
Challies says, “If the Bible is wrong, I’m wrong over and over, again and again, through and through. I’m poor, pathetic, pitiable, and blind.” Thank you Tim for finally admitting this. Rare is the believer who can openly and honestly admit that the Bible is not what Evangelicals say it is; that it is not in any way the inspired, inerrant, infallible World of God.
Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, wake up you are dreaming . . .
Damn, it was all a dream . . .
You see, Challies concluded his post with this:
But I’ve made my choice. I’ve examined the evidence and have chosen to believe it’s not wrong, but right. I’ve chosen to believe it’s good and pure and true, infallible and inerrant and sufficient. I’ve chosen to take it on its own terms, to believe it all the way, to live by its every word. I’ve chosen to be in—all-in.
Challies says he has “examined the evidence,” but no one who has genuinely examined the facts about the nature of the Biblical text can, with a straight face, say it is “pure and true, infallible and inerrant.” Tim’s Evangelical theology obstructs his vision, keeping him from seeing that the Bible is nothing more than an ancient religious text written by fallible men. Errors and contradictions abound. One need only to read a few of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books to know that inerrancy is a pig in a poke.
Bruce Gerencser, 62, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 41 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.
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.
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Mary asked: Bruce, how did you make the final break from [religious] belief? I still vacillate quite often and struggle w/the emotional turmoil that follows. thanks for taking time to answer the questions we are posting.
As an Evangelical, I could point to the date, time, and place Jesus saved me. I know when and how I was saved because I was there when it happened. For most of my life, I had what Evangelicals call a know-so salvation. The Apostle Paul had a know-so salvation too. In his letter to a young preacher by the name of Timothy, Paul wrote:
For the which cause I also suffer these things: nevertheless I am not ashamed: for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day. (2 Timothy 1:12)
Being a Christian, then, was all about “knowing”; about certainty of belief. The same cannot be said for my current state of unbelief. I have written tens of thousands of words about my deconversion and how I went from a preacher of the gospel to no longer believing the “truths” I once preached. I can point to the date when I attended church for the last time, and I remember the day when I said to myself (and to my wife), “I am no longer a Christian.” I can point to the 2009 letter I wrote to Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners as my equivalent of Martin Luther’s Ninety-five Theses. Yet, I haven’t had what I call a born-again atheist experience, and I don’t know many unbelievers who have.
The path from belief to unbelief is often long, arduous, and littered with stops, reversals, collisions, and a host of other things that complicate deconversion. In my case, I was part of the Christian church for fifty years. I spent twenty-five of those years pastoring Evangelical churches. Days, months, and years were spent devotedly worshiping and serving Jesus Christ. Tens of thousands of hours were given to reading and studying the Bible, reading theological tomes, praying, preaching, teaching, evangelizing the lost, and ministering to the needs of congregants. I was as deeply immersed in Evangelical church life as anyone could be. I was a sot in a religious sense, drinking in all that Christianity had to offer. Becoming an unbeliever, then, required detoxification. My mind was, and still is, filled with knowledge about Christianity, the Bible, and the experiential aspects of faith.
Unbelief is a frontal assault and challenge to a life of religious belief. For decades, I said I believed this or that. I was sure of my beliefs, having no doubt whatsoever that what the Bible said was absolute truth. It was only when I allowed agents of unbelief a seat at the table of my life that I began to have questions and doubts. These honorable, thoughtful voices of doubt and unbelief asked of me what the Devil asked of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, Yea hath God said? Answering (and continuing to answer) this question caused doubt and further questions. Questions begat questions, to use King James vernacular. This steady stream of questions ultimately led me to conclude that what Christians believed about the Bible was not true, and that the Christian narrative could not be rationally or intellectually sustained (at least to my satisfaction). I came to see that believing the Biblical story about God and Jesus required faith, a faith I did not have.
So, I can point to the last Sunday in November 2008 as the last time I attended church, but I can’t, even today, say that all vestiges of Christianity are gone from my mind and life. I suspect, thanks to my deep immersion in Christianity, that my life will never be totally and completely free of Christianity. What’s gone, though, is the hold religious belief had on my intellect; on critical thinking skills; on my thought processes. Belief and unbelief are more like two ships passing in the night. The farther I journey away from belief, the more comfortable I am with unbelief. Of course, Evangelicals will tell me that what is really happening is that my heart is growing cold and dark and that I am becoming a reprobate — one who passes a line of no return when it comes to the Christian God. I am far enough along in my journey that I can dismiss out of hand all such denunciations as the masturbatory verbalizing of people who can’t figure out my story and fear that they too could lose their faith. Feeling cornered, zealots lash out at Evangelicals-turned-atheists with cheap, shallow, worn-out apologetical arguments or turn to lambasting them in blog posts, forum comments, social media posts, and sermons. None of these things bothers me in the least now. I see such reactions from believers as their attempts to square with their theology how it is possible for such a devoted follower of Christ as myself to totally abandon the beliefs he once held dear. Baptists, in particular, have a big problem with trying to square their soteriological beliefs with my storyline. Finding themselves unable to square things theologically, they conclude, absurdly, that I am either still a Christian or I never was one.
I remember the near-constant emotional turmoil I experienced during the early days of deconversion. Long-held beliefs were demanding attention. Bible verses flooded my mind, reminding me of what happens to those who reject Christ. Christian friends and family members and colleagues in the ministry piled on in their attempts to stop me from sliding further down the proverbial slippery slope. All of these things, along with more late-night wrestlings with doubt than I care to remember, caused quite a bit of emotional upheaval. But, over time, these things began to fade into landscape in my rear-view mirror. All I can say to Mary is this: be patient. Deconversion takes time. To quote a well-worn cliché, life is a journey, not a destination. The destination for one and all is the same: death. What matters, then, is the path we walk among the living. Here’s the advice I give on my About page:
You have one life. There is no heaven or hell. There is no afterlife. You have one life, it’s yours, and what you do with it is what matters most. Love and forgive those who matter to you and ignore those who add nothing to your life. Life is too short to spend time trying to make nice with those who will never make nice with you. Determine who are the people in your life that matter and give your time and devotion to them. Live each and every day to its fullest. You never know when death might come calling. Don’t waste time trying to be a jack of all trades, master of none. Find one or two things you like to do and do them well. Too many people spend way too much time doing things they will never be good at.
Here’s the conclusion of the matter. It’s your life and you best get to living it. Someday, sooner than you think, it will be over. Don’t let your dying days be ones of regret over what might have been.
I have found that the more I focus on the things mentioned above the less I find myself bothered by doubts and questions about the rightness of my decision to walk away from Christianity. I suspect that I will always have niggling doubts about the matter, but I no longer fear being wrong or worry about eternal damnation. As the old gospel song goes, I have gone too far to turn back now. I have weighed Christianity in the balance and found it lacking in every way. While another deity of some sort may yet appear on the horizon — and when it does I will weigh its claims as I did the claims of Christianity — I am confident that the God I once served is no God at all. Coming to this place took time, so to Mary I say, relax and enjoy the journey. You likely intellectually already know that Christianity (along with other religions) is false. All that remains is for your emotions and psyche to sync with what you know to be true.
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.
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.
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.
Dave asked, As an Evangelical, How Did You Handle the Differences Between the OT and NT God?
The short answer is, I didn’t. As an Evangelical, I viewed God as this monotheistic whole; that the Old Testament characterization of God was one side of his nature, and the New Testament portrayal the other side of his nature. God, unlike humans, was able to love and hate at the same time. He could be the carrot or the stick. God was this perfect balance of emotions, never wrong, always acting according to his purpose, will, and plan. In those moments where I had a hard time reconciling the God of the OT and the God of the NT, I reminded myself that God’s thoughts are not my thoughts and God’s way are not my ways. Who was I to object to anything that God did?
Believing the Bible was an inspired, inerrant, infallible text, of course, boxed me in as to what I could or couldn’t believe. I believed the words of the Bible were straight from the mouth of God. Thus, when God commanded cruel, violent, or genocidal behavior, I had to say, God had his reasons. We have to trust God, believing that he knows what he is doing.
One of reasons I left Christianity is because I could reconcile the OT and NT God. Either they were two different deities, or the Christian God was a loving, kind madman. I knew that Christians deny the former, so I concluded that the God of the Bible was not a divine being I wanted to worship. Over the years, I have dealt with liberal Christians who only see God as a God of love, mercy, and kindness. They love the NT God, but even here is God really all that loving and kind? I concluded that he is not.
In the NT, we have the violent death of Jesus on the cross. According to Evangelicals, God, the Father poured out his wrath on Jesus, his Son, to satisfy a longstanding debt: human sin. Everything that happened to Jesus came from his Father’s hand. What kind of father treats his son this way? What kind of father punishes his son for what someone else did? God, the Father, then, comes off looking like a serial killer who loves to inflict pain and suffering on his victims before he kills them.
We also have the book of Revelation. Evangelicals believe Revelation is a record of past history and future events. Someday soon, Evangelicals say, Jesus and his Father are going to unleash a house of horrors upon the Earth such as never has been seen. The earth will be destroyed and billions of people will die, including little children, unborn fetuses, and the developmentally disabled. The bloodshed, according to the Bible, will be so great that blood will flow through the streets the height of a horse’s bridle.
Once God is finished with the earth and its inhabitants, he will resurrect everyone who ever lived on our planet and divide them into two groups: saved and lost. The saved will live forever in God’s kingdom on a new earth. The lost will be fitted with bodies capable of enduring endless suffering and pain, and then cast into the Lake of Fire. Most of the people in the Lake of Fire will be there because of geography — living in places where people worshiped the wrong deity.
It seems to me, then, that the Christian God has always being capricious and violent; that he has always resorted to bloodshed to prove a point or get his way; that the OT and NT Gods are really one being with a split-personality disorder. What the Christian God needs is psychiatric help.
What Christians need to do is write a new Bible, excising the genocidal God from the story. Evangelicals, of course, would never approve of a rewrite. They need the violent God to justify the culture war and their belief that that they are the gleam in their Father’s eye. Imagine all the smug, self-righteous Evangelicals on Judgment Day. They want God to make non-Evangelicals pay for their unbelief. Open a can of whoop ass, Lord, and give it these filthy, reprobate sinners. They deserve an eternity of pain and suffering for not believing in the right God and not living by book, chapter, and verse. Pour it on, Lord. You are worthy!
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.
This Book that I have in my hands, I read each day. When I stand to preach, I preach this Book – this is the Bible!
It is the Word of God. It is a Book so special that we treat it with the utmost respect. We hold it dear and precious to our hearts.
It is not a Book like any other books which men have written. This Book came to us in a unique way. God Himself gave it to us. When I read its message, it is not the mere musings of a sage, a prophet or an apostle. It is instead the revealed Word of God.
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It [the Bible] is not the words of men but the Word of the Almighty God, who is the Creator of the world. The human penmen were employed of God to write His very words.
When we say it was given by inspiration of God, we mean that God Himself gave us His own words. That is why we use the terms verbal and plenary to describe what it is. Verbal has to do with His actual words. It is not just His ideas or concepts, but His words. When we say plenary, we mean inspired fully. It is not somewhat of God with the rest of it being man-made. It is in every sense a God-made Book.
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Is the King James Bible the Word of God? Absolutely! Let us stop the quibbling. Either you have the Word of God or you do not. If your Bible is the Word of God, then you have something totally unique and very, very special.
What is your problem? Why do you feel the necessity to dismember, dissect and dilute the text? Why can you not just say, “My Bible is the Word of God; I believe it, I trust it and I honor it to the fullest?”
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God has preserved His inspired Word for us. It is preserved in the Hebrew Masoretic text and in the Greek Textus Receptus. It is also preserved for us in the English in the King James Bible. What He at first inspired, the Lord God has now preserved. Therefore, when I hold the King James Bible in my hand, I hold the inspired text. It was inspired and now that inspired Word has been protected, preserved and provided for us!
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What Is It That God Preserved? It is His Word, nothing more and nothing less! Remember Psalm 12:6-7 says, “The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, thou shall preserve them from this generation for ever.”
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Is the King James Text Reliable and Trustworthy? It is indeed! About your King James Bible you can say it is authentic, accurate and authoritative. It is God’s Word preserved for us in English. It is true and trustworthy. The inspired text has been preserved for us; therefore, it is inerrant and infallible.
his Book that I have in my hands, I read each day. When I stand to preach, I preach this Book – this is the Bible!