Elizabeth Prata, an Evangelical Calvinist and the author of The End Time blog, becomes the latest person to attempt to delegitimize and explain away the storylines of Evangelicals-turned-atheists. No matter what we say about how we lived our lives as devoted followers of Jesus and why we later walked (or ran) away from Christianity, Prata knows better. Rather than accept narratives of loss of faith at face value, Prata concocts a strawman of the Evangelical-turned-atheist in her mind so she can make her peculiar theology “fit” our deconversion stories. In her mind, there’s no such thing as an ex-Christian. Anyone who deconverts was never a Christian to start with.
Those who fell away were never really one of Jesus’ elect to begin with.
….
And before the person started falling away, in came sneaky heresies they began listening to. They enjoyed these false teachings and heresies because their darkened heart had never experienced the light.
….
So the progression is: profess Christ by mouth… but since there was no visible fruit to show the state of grace they were claiming on the inside, they were never really saved & regeneration never occurred; fail to walk closely with Jesus by procrastinating in discipleship, Bible study, prayer, and/or worship, furthering the distance between themselves and Jesus; (OR, faithfully attending church and Bible study but due to hard heart always were learning but never able to come to knowledge of the truth); listen to or promote destructive heresies that either they knowingly or unknowingly begin to believe, start doubting Christ’s sufficiency; doubt more, and then slide into apostasy’s full blown renunciation and end up in a state of atheism.
….
The end result of a Christian in name only – that is, one who claimed Jesus but never really believed – and is one who is at risk of being tempted by destructive heresies, and ultimately of apostasy. What comes next is atheism.
Atheism is a natural cul-de-sac in the road away from the cross.
….
Which, I suspect, could be one of the reasons Peter said it makes a person worse off from what they were before. After apostasy settles in and atheism rears its head, a person is well and truly now in the dangerous pits of despair, misplacing their burgeoning faith in Something for a faith in Nothing that will last forever.
According to Prata, here’s the progression:
We professed faith in Jesus with our mouths but not our heart
We had no visible fruit in our lives
We failed to walk closely with Jesus by procrastinating in discipleship, Bible study, prayer, and/or worship, furthering the distance between ourselves and Jesus
Or we faithfully attended church and Bible study but due to hardened hearts we always were learning but never able to come to knowledge of the truth
We listened to and promoted dangerous heresies which we began to believe more and more
And then, one day we slid right down the proverbial slippery slope into apostasy and atheism
Does this progression remotely describe your journey from Evangelical Christianity to atheism/agnosticism or even liberal Christianity or a different religion altogether? I know it doesn’t mine, not even close. and I suspect it doesn’t describe your journey either. You see, for Prata’s denunciation of us to work, she must paint us as shallow, nominal Christians, not people who were committed, devoted followers of Jesus. She also must paint us as ignorant, poorly taught believers; anything but accepting that we were just as much in love with Jesus as she is; that we were knowledgeable of the teachings of the Bible, just as she is; that we lived our lives in holiness, just as she does.
Regardless of her motivations, Prata is being dishonest with her portrayal of Evangelicals-turned-atheists. If she wants atheists to embrace her peculiar version of Christianity, the first thing she must do is be honest. As long as she deliberately portrays former believers in a dishonest light, it is fair for us to question her moral character. When Prata says she is a Christian, I believe her. I always initially take people at face value. If you say you worship Jesus, I believe you. Who am I to question how people self-identify? I just wish the Elizabeth Pratas of the world would do the same for us non-believers. I am sure she will argue that the Bible says _________! As if that somehow absolves her of how she falsely portrays people different from her. If the goal is honest discourse, then the least any of us can do is listen to those we disagree with and allow them to control their own storyline. If an ancient religious text stands in the way of you being a decent human being, then perhaps it is time to chuck the Bible.
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.
Several years ago, I received numerous emails from an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) man too afraid to use his real name and email address. Here’s what he had to say in three of them:
Email number one
Bruce,
You are filth to it’s core:
You have about 50 brainwashed followers. Not the “thousands” that you claim to have. I have read about 50 percent of the content on your website. I also listened to the interview that you gave to the demon on YouTube (congratulations on your (1) thumbs up . Very Sad!
Which brings me to my topic. It would normally be your favorite…yourself! Look into a mirror and behold your idol: You do not really care about anyone other then yourself. I know deep down you’re thinking…he’s right. You never loved the Lord, or anyone else. As a fat, lazy, alt-left, anti-Christian, bigoted grub you “now” embrace socialism! How convenient. You couldn’t wait to send your wife out to work. How convenient. You can’t work because you are depressed. How convenient. You have (6) children and (11) grandchildren, and now you love the slaughter of the unborn (children)! How convenient. You claim that you need to have, all of the “maltreatment” that you have suffered at the hands of The Church “documented”, because you are now writing a book (I hope that it does better than your first big interview)! How convenient. One would need a good measure of “faith” too believe you! How inconvenient!
You know who should be writing a book. All the folks that trusted and PAID you, because they thought that you were representing The LORD Jesus Christ! They are the real victims…you disgusting fat pig! NOT YOU BRUCE! Not you.
Why don’t you write a blog titled “Why I hate Mohammad”??? I think you (we) know why Brucey! Because you are a COWARD! You pick on our counties weakest citizens! You put my IP address out there publicly? Too what end? Then one of your brainwashed, brain dead, sycophants, puts up a map, of a liberal “church” a 100 miles away! You are such a reckless, foolish putz!
I will pray for your family! Their husband, father and grandfather, is a little girl…in a man’s body!
Get on your knees and beg Jesus Christ for Forgiveness! REPENT! Get Baptized! Join a FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN CHURCH! After your conversation (God willing)…beg your family for FORGIVENESS, and for once in your life, get an honest job!
You truly have nothing to lose.
Very Sincerely, A worm who Christ died for.
Email number two
Bruce,
You are a fat, lazy and pathetic COWARD! I been on your Facebook page, which by the way, is a complete failure, much like your YouTube channel. Why no posts about fundamental Islam? Are you afraid Bruce?Surely a big mouth like yourself, must dislike something about a militant form of their religion???
You like picking on people that you KNOW are peaceful Bruce! Because of you, Christian children are mocked in school Bruce! You send your low I.Q. wife out to work, while pretending to have a photography “business”! Why is this “businesses” website stagnant Bruce? You may fool your dumb wife, but most of your poor family knows who and what you are! This no-show job, gives you plenty of time to write your filth about our counties weakest citizens while stuffing your fat face, ALL DAY–BRUCE!
You think that it is funny…smearing the LORD JESUS CHRIST’s HOLY NAME! I have some advice for you Bruce. I know that you hate advice and correction. You have more rules on your anti-Christian, alt-left, fake news blog, then any church does:
Get down on your face, and BEG the LORD, Jesus Christ for forgiveness! REPENT! Get Baptized! Join a Fundamentalist, Christian church! Tell your wife and family that you DESERVE HELL, and so do they (so do I)! Publicly apologize to the thousands of people that you have HURT !
You truly have nothing to lose!
Very Sincerely, A worm who Christ died for!
Email number three
You are a disgrace to your country, family and yourself! I know that you hate too hear it but… you were NEVER, EVER, Saved! Your god is your belly!
You are the most selfish person that I never met! You desperately need to really get Saved! Fall down on your face and beg Jesus Christ for Forgiveness! Repent! Get Baptized! Join a Fundamentalist Christian Church! You are a slob, and have been your entire sad life! Get out of the wagon and help the rest of us pull it!
Give back the money that you stole: pretending to be a “pastor”! I Will be praying for you, but your family, really needs the prayers much more! How can you look your children in the face! You are SATANIC for the misery that you have caused them!
Think about it…you truly have nothing to lose!
Very Sincerely,
Just another day among God-loving, sin-hating assholes for Jesus.
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.
Twice in the past week, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preachers have told me that I am demon possessed; that I never was a Christian; that I was a deceiver and false prophet. Today, in an article for The Christian Post titled Can Christ-worshipers turn into demon-worshipers? Evangelical Calvinist John Piper had this to say about people like me:
No genuinely called and justified Christian ever falls away into demon worship — not permanently, anyway.
….
[Piper said the question pertained to people] who’ve been in the church for years and are outwardly identifying as Christian and yet are not truly born again and end up being swept away into the teaching of demons.
….
The danger of seduction by deceitful spirits and teachings of demons is always present throughout this fallen age, from the time of Jesus till Jesus comes back. They’re always there. But there will be a greater temptation as the end of the age approaches and the Lord draws near.
….
Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.
In other words, the mystery of lawlessness will have a huge impact on nominal Christians, whose love for Christ is shallow and unreal. They will grow cold. Their resistance to the deception of demons will give way and they will not endure to the end.
Devout followers of Jesus are leaving Evangelicalism in droves; people who were pastors, evangelists, missionaries, youth leaders, worship leaders, and college professors, to name a few. These folks dedicated their lives to worshipping and serving Jesus. Everything in their lives said to the world, “I am a born-again child of the living God.” When critics are asked for evidence to justify their harsh criticisms, none is provided. Instead, unsubstantiated accusations are leveled against former servants of the Most High.
The root problem is theological. The IFB preachers mentioned above believe that once a person is saved, he can never, ever lose his salvation. Piper, a Calvinist, believes this too, but with this caveat: a believer must endure (persevere) to the end (death) to be saved. The first fifty years of my life testify to faith in Christ; to devotion to God, the Word, and the church. Years ago, a family member said to another, upon hearing of my deconversion, “If Butch isn’t a Christian, nobody is.” I have had former congregants tell me that they could no longer be friends with me; that they find my story disconcerting, causing them to doubt their own salvation. Fourteen years ago, a dear preacher friend of mine begged me to keep quiet about my loss of faith. He feared that some people upon learning of my deconversion, could become so troubled that they too would lose their faith.
People who knew me are left with an irreconcilable conundrum. They listened to my preaching and observed my behavior. They know I was a Christian in every way. Yet today, I am an outspoken atheist; an enemy of God; a mocker of all things holy and true. My writing repudiates everything I once believed. Some former associates believe I am still saved — just backslidden; that I will either one day return to the faith or God will severely chastise or kill me. Other associates, those of Arminian persuasion, believe I have fallen from grace; that I once was saved, and now I am not.
Preachers such as the aforementioned IFB pastors and John Piper take a different tack. Instead of acknowledging my past devotion to Jesus and the testimony of scores of people about my love for God, they dismiss my story out of hand, saying that I was never what I and others say I was. These critics only know me from afar, yet they feel more than qualified to render judgment. What they are, in effect, saying is that I am lying about my past and that the people who speak glowingly about my preaching and love and care for others are misinformed or deceived. In their minds, I have always been a deceiver, someone who, at the very least was and is influenced by the Devil and demons, or actually possessed by demons.
I get it. My story and those of other ex-preachers and church workers are troubling and challenge the assumptions many Evangelicals have about people who leave Christianity. “How can these things be,” they say to themselves, and instead of taking a hard look at their theological beliefs and presumptuousness, they take the easy way out by calling former believers names or claiming they are demon-possessed. Anything except wrestling with why an increasing number of devoted followers of Jesus are exiting the church stage left, never to return.
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.
Not-a-Real-Doctor David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, has returned to his previous ways, writing posts about me and using my writing without proper attribution. His latest post titled, The Bible IS What it Claims to Be — 2 is his latest attempt to smear my character. Before I address what Thiessen wrote, I want to point out Thiessen’s post title; particularly his use of the word IS in ALL CAPS. Every time Thiessen does this, I think of this:
YES, IT IS! YES, IT IS! YES, IT IS! All caps is how people shout digitally, hoping to make a point. Thiessen has spent his entire life in Christian Fundamentalism; a movement where shouting and pulpit pounding is used to say “BLESS GOD, I AM ABSOLUTELY, 100% RIGHT! CAN I GET AN A-M-E-N? So when Thiessen uses ALL CAPS, he’s just screaming, with index fingers in each ear, I’M RIGHT!
To be frank, who is Bruce anyways? What has he accomplished that anyone, including unbelievers, should listen to what he says? he quit on just about everything in his life except his marriage and what does a quitter have to offer anyone?
When Simone Biles quit on her Olympic team you should have read the comments under every article about her. They were not nice and most dismissed her and her opinion, etc. Quitters do not get the brass ring nor do they get any influence.
The moment former Christians quit the faith, they lose access to the truth and help from the only person who can get them to the truth and explain it correctly to them Also, when people quit the faith, they are not moving from an inferior god to a superior one.
Nor are they moving to a better religious faith that actually stops people from committing crimes or sinning, and they are not moving to a greater moral code. What they have done is moved from a faith that has all of those elements and moved to NOTHING.
….
We do not care what the owner of that website says nor do we care what any atheist or unbeliever says. They have nothing to offer anyone because they either reject something and stay in nothing or moved from something to nothing.
They are not correct and never will be. Plus, they have no hidden information that shows that God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Bible, the Christian faith, and so on is a hoax. They have nothing.
Thiessen “frankly” asks, “Who is Bruce, anyways?” Who I am can easily be ascertained by reading my autobiographical writing. Thiessen’s question is rhetorical. What he is really saying is that Bruce Gerencser is a nobody. Why would anyone listen to a “nobody”? I am sixty-six years old, yet he dismisses my entire life. Why? Well, in Thiessen’s mind, I am a “quitter.” I have “quit” everything in my life, except my marriage. This is rich coming from a man who is no longer a pastor; a man who divorced or left his wife; a man who abandoned his baby. Talk about a quitter. Of course, I would never disparagingly call him a quitter. Shit happens. Things change. Jobs, ministries, and marriages come and go.
Thiessen, of course, knows these things. Why he beats the “quitter” drum over and over and over again is beyond me. I have tried through this blog to give an honest account of my life. Thiessen has made no attempt to do the same. He hides in a foreign country, using several aliases over the years. His readers, all ten of them, know little to nothing about him. He parades around proud as a peacock as a “Dr.” yet refuses to say where he earned his degree or make his doctoral thesis available to the public. He is free, of course, to do these things, but personal attacks on me and my honest telling of my life carry no weight. I really wish he would stop with the quitter” schtick. He won’t because he knows it bothers me. Color me human, but I don’t like it when people lie about me.
Thiessen uses the horrible abuse Simon Biles received after dropping out of the Olympics as justification for attacking my character. As a quitter, I shouldn’t expect to be treated nicely by others. According to Thiessen, quitters such as Simon Biles and I shouldn’t have any influence over others, nor should we get the brass ring — whatever the Hell that means. In other words, leaving Christianity undoes everything I have done in my life. Nothing I do going forward will have meaning and value. Since Thiessen delusionally thinks his words = God’s words, all I can say is this: Derrick Thiessen worships a horrible God.
According to Thiessen, on the last Sunday of November in 2008 — almost fifteen years ago — every bit of knowledge and truth in my brain disappeared. From that day forward, I could no longer know and understand “truth.” Why? Because all “truth” comes from Jesus, an uneducated traveling preacher who died 2,000 years ago. It is Jesus alone who can explain truth to us.
Thiessen says he doesn’t care what I say, yet he has written almost one hundred posts about me or in response to something I have written. I’d say based on this fact that Thiessen has an unhealthy obsession with me. I’ve repeatedly offered to send him my Stripper Santa Pole Dancing® photo, but so far he refuses to provide me with his mailing address. His loss. 🙂
Thiessen ends his harangue about me with a number of personal attacks, all meant to belittle and demean me.
Perhaps Thiessen has forgotten that Jesus told him how to treat the atheist Bruce Gerencser and others like him:
But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take thy coat also.Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful.Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again. (Luke 6:27-38)
Jesus said it, Derrick, I didn’t.
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.
From 1995-2002, I pastored Our Father’s House — a nondenominational church in the small rural Ohio community of West Unity. I had started the church in a storefront in downtown West Unity — the former library building. We eventually bought the building for $20,000. For seven years, I pastored a delightful group of people. Outside of three older families leaving the church over our use of praise and worship music (they wanted hymns only with a smattering of southern gospel music), Our Father’s House was a kind, loving, unified body. The church never grew much, peaking attendance-wise in the 50s.
I have lots of stories to share about my time in West Unity, but none about conflict or disgruntled congregants. If I ever pastored a Kumbaya church, Our Father’s House was it. I could have easily pastored the church for decades. Unfortunately, as a driven church planter, I became bored. Everything was fine, but nothing of substance was happening. In 2002, I decided it was time for me to move on to new, more exciting experiences. The church body decided that if I wasn’t going to be their pastor, they didn’t want to continue. So in July 2002, we closed the church’s doors, sold the building, and everyone moved on to other congregations. Today, most of them are still involved with conservative Christian churches.
After seven months away from the pulpit, God (I) decided it was time for me to get back on the proverbial horse and find a church to pastor. I decided to see what churches were available with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in Ohio and Michigan. I sent my resume to several SBC associations. In a matter of days, I received calls from twelve different churches that were looking for a pastor. Most of them were small churches that were seeking a bi-vocational pastor. Bi-vocational is Greek for working your ass off, burning the candle at both ends for the sake of God and his kingdom.
One of the first churches to call me was Victory Baptist Church in Clare, Michigan — a congregation running 30 or so in attendance. On the Sunday before Easter 2003, we drove two and a half hours north to Clare so I could preach for the church. My preaching and our family were well received. I returned two weeks later, at which time church leaders told me that they were interested in me becoming their next pastor. I told them that “God” was telling me the same thing. Two or so weeks later, we moved to a beautiful home in a gated community near Farwell, Michigan, and I became the next pastor of Victory Baptist Church. Seven months later, tired, worn-out, and disillusioned, we returned to our family in rural northwest Ohio.
What happened? I saw Victory Baptist as a fixer-upper, of sorts; a church that needed the magical touch of Pastor Bruce. I had been successful in the past in resurrecting churches and helping them to grow, so I thought Victory was just another church that I could bring back to life. And sure enough, attendance began to grow. We remodeled the entire church building; “we” meaning my family and a couple of men in the church. We constructed a new auditorium, added Sunday school classrooms and offices, added a nursery, and laid carpet throughout. Before, the church looked like a cluttered, messy, disorganized warehouse. Now it looked like a real church; complete with a fancy new sign.
I was busy working in God’s vineyard. The church paid me a paltry salary, while Polly worked full-time for a local dry cleaner. We kept our heads above water — barely. I loved being “busy.” That had been my way my entire life. Work, work, work, do, do, do. Preach, teach, study, win souls, visit church members, and do it all over again week after week. Though that Bruce still lives inside of me, health problems have robbed me of the physical ability to continue on my workaholic path.
Seven months in, I had a disagreement with a woman in the church (who wanted to be a preacher and had been a member for years) over toys in the nursery. Her daughter had some toys she couldn’t sell at a yard sale, including those children could climb upon. She wanted to donate them to the church nursery. I took a look at the items and declined her offer. I told her that were not well suited for young children; that they could cause injury and harm. I thought that was the end of the matter.
The next day, I found out the toys had been put in the nursery, anyway. Pissed off, I removed them. This, of course, led to outrage and demands that I put the toys back. I said, no, telling people that we could not have unsafe toys in the nursery. Sometimes, pastors have to protect church members from themselves. The “noise” became so loud that I resigned from the church. A meeting was held to discuss the matter. Members showed up who hadn’t been to church in months. Nothing like a business meeting to bring members to church. I reminded the church that I had told them that I wouldn’t fight with them; that I no longer had it in me to deal with church cliques and power brokers. I had become a lover, and not a fighter.
At the close of the meeting, one member — a pastor’s wife — told me, “Bruce, your vision was never our vision,” Her words cut me to the quick, but she was right. The church was fine with wallowing in their dysfunction. They had no interest in being anything other than what they were. I had cleaned up their mess, balanced the church books that hadn’t been reconciled in five years, removed members from the roll who no longer attended the church, refinanced the church mortgage, cut their payment by a third, and brought a sense of order to church services. What I should have done is pay attention to their dysfunction and cliquishness. Instead, I minimized these things, thinking I could fix what ailed them. I thought all the church needed was fresh air. I should have known that all the fresh air in the world won’t bring a rotting corpse back to life.
No one spoke to us after the church meeting. Not one person called or offered to help us load our U-Haul. I had spent 40-60 hours a week trying to build a successful SBC work in Clare. None of that mattered. One elderly man by the name of Bob said that I was the best preacher he had heard in fifty years, but I had gone too far with removing the toys. If I was compiling a resume today, I would list Victory Baptist Church in Clare, Michigan. Where it says “reason for leaving,” I would write: toys.
As we were driving by the church for the last time, the toy lady was out front scraping my name off the sign with a paint scraper. This would be the last church I pastored. I was done. Done with the fussing and fighting and constant pettiness. I loved preaching and teaching the Bible. I loved ministering to others, and helping the “least of these,” but the petty bullshit? I put my shovel away.
After we left Victory, several other families decided to move to other Baptist congregations. Two years later, the church closed its doors.
In 2005, I would briefly consider re-entering the ministry. We were now living in Newark, Ohio. I sent out my resume to several SBC associations in West Virginia and Kentucky. And just like before, fifteen churches called to request my services. By then, I had become quite particular with what I required from churches: a living wage, medical insurance, vacation, and a parsonage. This quickly narrowed the list down to one church, Hedgesville Baptist Church in Hedgesville, West Virginia. I preached for the church, but I knew that my heart was no longer in the work. Hedgesville checked all my boxes. They were a growing congregation, in proximity to Hagerstown, Maryland, and Washington D.C. This could have been my dream church, but I suspect I already had one foot out of the door. This would be the last sermon I preached Forty-two months later I left Christianity and became an atheist.
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.
Dr. David Tee — who is neither a Doctor or a Tee — mounted his Internet pulpit recently to opine on why people leave Christianity. Here’s an excerpt from his post:
People have all sorts of excuses and they have all sorts of motivating triggers that help them make a decision. One thing that bothers us about the reasons they give is that there is no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Yet, these people who have turned away from different religions, mostly those that claim to be Christian., have decided to toss all of their faith away instead of moving to a different church (non-cultic) that meets their needs and shows them what Christianity is all about.
We are not going to list the reasons here. . .
Your eternal destination is on your shoulders, it is your responsibility, not the other people in the church.
Yes, many people do not follow Jesus and act in a way that is consistent with biblical instructions or commands. But you get to rebuke them if they err. using other people’s behavior to leave the church, Christ, and other religious organizations is simply making an excuse for your decision and failing to take responsibility for that momentous occasion.
Most of the reasons read like excuses. They have little legitimacy and point the finger towards the idea ‘I do not like what you did so I will punish you by leaving the church.’ Not a very smart or common sense decision.
….
But as we said, most are excuses and it looks like people did not want to be in the church anyway and were looking for a face-saving way to leave the church.
Evil is hard at work in destroying people so it is somewhat understandable why these illogical and non-common sense decisions were made. People seem to like doing knee-jerk reactions when it comes to church and religion overall.
What is ironic is the fact that you do not see people saying the same type of things about how non-believers or non-religious people treated them and their families. If they like to be treated well why then do they not leave unbelief when they or their families are treated in horrendous ways?
….
However, leaving the church or your faith over those incidents is not a smart thing to do. Those decisions say a lot about the people making those excuses:
#1. They are not looking to God to meet their needs. They are looking at pastors, etc and when they do not get what they want they take it out on God and punish him.
#2. They are holding the pastors and churches to a standard they do not hold themselves to. Are those people who deserted the faith, etc., doing what they expect other religious people to do?
#3. They are selfish and only want a one-way street their way.
#4. Their own claims to be a believer were not based on a strong foundation and they were weak, toppled over the first situation that provided negative input. They were superficial believers and probably like the seeds that were scattered on rocky or hard soil according to the parable Jesus told.
#5. They do not give God much credit or really cared about him. They were turned off of God for very petty acts that could have been overcome with prayer and a change in churches. This does not say much about them and their commitment to God or their religions.
Tee’s real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, so I will use his legal name in the remainder of his post.
Thiessen’s post is a theological trainwreck. Thiessen supposedly has a Bible college education and was a pastor, but many of his posts reveal that his theology can be best described as paint-by-number; except for the fact that when a number corresponds to a particular color, Thiessen uses whatever color he wants; regardless of how doing so makes the painting look. Thanks to his literalist, inerrantist, “it means what it says” view of the Protestant Christian Bible, Thiessen has beliefs that are, at times heterodox, or even heretical. I have concluded that he doesn’t really understand the Christian gospel, as he vacillates from salvation by grace to salvation by works to salvation by right beliefs to an admixture of these beliefs. I don’t doubt that Thiessen is a Christian, but damn, I’m not certain that he understands the gospel or has an in-depth understanding of Christian — particularly Evangelical — soteriology. While it would be fun to shred Thiessen’s theological beliefs, I am more concerned about the lies he continues to spread about people who left Evangelical Christianity and embraced atheism, agnosticism, paganism, or non-Christian religions. I say “lies” because Thiessen has been reading my writing for several years. He has written uncounted posts about me personally, Ben Berwick, and the readers of this blog. His unhealthy, creepy obsession with me is well known. No matter how many times I tell Thiessen that I am NOT interested in hooking up with him, he continues to write about me, uttering lies and half-truths as effortlessly as does disgraced congressman George Santos.
I have repeatedly talked about the reasons why I deconverted. I have, time after time, responded to Evangelical apologists who, much like Thiessen, think they know the “real” reasons people walk away from Christianity; people who attack the character of the deconverted and malign their motives for doing so. These scurrilous attackers of former Evangelicals often pontificate on the whys of deconversion without meaningfully and extensively talking to those who have actually deconverted. God condemns such behavior in Proverbs 18:13: Answering before listening is both stupid and rude.
Thiessen says that people like me are excuse-makers; that we blame others for our loss of faith; that the church hurt us, so we left, with feelings hurt, never to return. Thiessen later says that those who leave Christianity are selfish, people who want their way, and when they don’t get it, they take it out on God and punish him (there’s some of that famous Thiessen theology). Thiessen suggests that people who deconvert are superficial Christians or even fake believers; that they never cared much for God or gave credit to him (for what, exactly, Thiessen doesn’t say).
I ask you, dear readers, do Thiessen’s reasons for why people leave Christianity reflect why you are no longer a Christian? Thiessen knows better. He knows exactly why people deconvert. I have explained this to him numerous times in my writing and email responses to him. It is evident, at least to me, that Thiessen is not an honest interlocuter; that his goal is to demean and defame, and not honestly and humbly understand.
What do you think about Thiessen’s post? Please share your erudite thoughts in the comment section. I am sure “Dr.” Tee will appreciate your responses. I would suggest that you comment on his blog, but he doesn’t allow comments.
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.
Two weeks ago, my interview with Tim Mills, The Harmonic Atheist, was published on YouTube. As of today, over 20,000 people have watched our interview.
With the interest in hearing my story have come scores of Evangelical Christians telling me that I am headed for Hell; that I never was a Christian; that I just needed to pray a simple prayer to Jesus and he would save me. Numerous zealots have weighed in on my story, certain that they know exactly what is “wrong” with me and what I must do to avoid being eternally tortured by their peculiar version of God. Several Calvinists weighed in, saying that it is evident I am a reprobate — one who is beyond the grace of God and cannot be saved. One man simply said, “Bruce is full of horseshit.”
Such is the nature of YouTube. Most content creators don’t moderate comments, so Evangelicals can and do bully and attack people who run afoul of their theology, beliefs, and practices. Tim did delete several comments that were over the top. I appreciate him doing so. On this site, I have strict commenting rules, which Evangelicals routinely ignore. If I had the same comment policy as YouTube, I would be overrun with abusive comments (as was the case years ago). There was a time when hateful comments really got under my skin and caused harm both to me and to the readers of this blog. Sometimes the hostile comments got so bad that I stopped blogging. Those days are long gone. I returned to blogging in December 2014. I made sure that I instituted strict policies governing Evangelicals. I also let Evangelicals know that if they sent me hateful emails I would publicly expose them for doing so. This has dramatically cut down the negative emails and comments I receive, but, as regular readers know, Evangelicals still feel led by the Holy Spirit to “share” with me what Hey-Zeus has laid upon their hearts.
I was raised in the Evangelical church, attended Bible college, and pastored churches for twenty-five years. I preached countless sermons about Hell. I fully understand what Evangelicals believe about Hell, the Lake of Fire, and eternal, everlasting punishment. And my critics KNOW that I know these things. Yet, over the past fifteen years, Evangelicals have told me I am headed for Hell more times than I can count. What do they hope to gain by telling me this? Or is the real issue that they find my story threatening; a reminder of the fact that if someone such as I can lose their faith anyone can? So they hurl hellfire and brimstone my way, hoping to quell their own questions and doubts. That’s why they rarely engage in meaningful discussions with me. Questions and pushback from someone who knows the Bible inside and out threatens their spiritual security, so they stand on the corner across the street from my house and chuck rocks.
Many Evangelicals try to discredit me by saying that I never was a Christian; that I was deceived; that I met a false Jesus. By doing this, they can, with a wave of their hand, ignore my story. The problem with this approach is that they have no evidence for their claim. Evangelicals cannot provide one church member or colleague of mine in the ministry who, at the time I was a pastor, believed I was a “false Christian.” Not one. They can, however, find numerous people who will tell them that I was a devoted follower of Jesus; that I took seriously God’s calling on my life. I wasn’t perfect, to be sure. I am sure my wife, Polly, and our six grown children could share plenty of stories about their husband and father being less than Christian. However, they would likely testify that the bent of my life was certainly toward holiness and love for God.
Many Evangelicals can’t square my story with their soteriology and interpretation of the Bible — especially Baptists — so they assuage their theological confusion by saying I never was a Christian. Instead of questioning their theology or trying to make my story fit their beliefs, they lazily decree that I was a false Christian.
I hate it when people say I never was a Christian. By doing this, Evangelicals discredit fifty of my six-six years of life on planet earth. They pretend that those years and how I lived my life don’t exist. When someone tells me their story I generally believe them. If I have doubt about some aspect of their story — say Evangelicals who say they were atheists before they got saved — I ask questions. I don’t automatically assume they are lying. When someone tells me they are a Christian, I believe them. It is their life, their story. Who I am to say that their experiences are invalid? I may think that some of their experiences won’t survive rational, skeptical examination, but unless they are directly interacting with me or trying to use their subjective experiences as evidence for the existence of God, I am inclined to accept their stories at face value. Life is too short for me to spend much time deconstructing the lives of others. I wish Evangelicals would take the same approach with me. Read my story, ask questions, and I will respond. Read my story and threaten me with Hell or discredit my life? I am likely to gut you like a fish.
The strangest approach comes from Evangelicals who think that prayer is some sort of magic spell; that if I would just sincerely pray a prayer they prescribe (which often contains heretical theology), Jesus would hear my prayer, save me from my sin, and give me a home in Heaven when I die. Every time an Evangelical takes this approach with me, I stop what I am doing and pray their prescribed prayer. I have done this countless times, yet I remain an atheist. Either prayer doesn’t work the way they think it does, or God is a myth. My money is on the latter.
As many Evangelicals-turned-atheists/agnostics have done, when I began having doubts about Christianity and the Bible, I pleaded with God to show me the truth. I begged him to show me a way to remain a Christian. One former friend and a colleague in the ministry told me that I needed to stop asking questions and just faith-it. A former church member told me that I needed to stop reading books. “Just read the Bible, Bruce,” she told me. Of course, I couldn’t do that. I had always been a voracious reader who was willing to change my beliefs if warranted. As congregants and pastor friends, they admired my intellectualism, but now they wanted me to return to an ignorant, child-like faith. My best friend, at the time, took a different approach with me. He wrote me a blistering email that said I was under the influence of Satan, unstable in all my ways. He made no attempt to pull me back from the abyss. Instead, he castigated me for ruining my family. None of these people, and others like them, were willing or able to honestly, openly, and without reservation, interact with me. Would their intervention have made a difference? No. I knew that their answers were no match for my questions. I was reading non-Evangelical scholars and theologians. I was also reading books by prominent unbelievers. I had spent twenty-five years reading books by Evangelical authors, so there was no need to re-read their books. Solomon said, “there is nothing new under the sun,” and that is especially true when it comes to Evangelical theology.
As my knowledge increased and the truth came into better focus, I once again asked God to step in and save me from myself. Alas, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords was silent, and he has remained silent until this very moment. I have concluded, then, that either God doesn’t give a shit about me or he doesn’t exist. All the evidence suggests to me that he doesn’t exist.
There’s nothing I can do to stop Evangelicals from doing what Evangelicals do. All I am saying in this post to Evangelicals is this: you might want to try a different approach with me (and atheists, in general). Threats of Hell fall on deaf ears. Suggesting that I was never a Christian only brings laughs and incredulity. And finally, asking me to pray shallow, often heretical prayers is making you look bad. How you frame the gospel in your prescribed prayers suggest that you really don’t understand the Christian gospel at all. Instead of asking me to pray a prayer, you might actually want to read your Bible and seriously study Christian soteriology. Maybe you are the one who isn’t saved. 🙂
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.
Several days ago, an atheist told me I must have been pretty “stupid” if it took me fifty years to realize that Christianity was false. He proudly told me that he figured out as a child that God was a myth, and from that point forward he was an atheist. He added that “God” was no different from Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. In other words, he was saying that I must have been pretty dull if it took me five decades of my life to figure out what he figured out as a mere child.
Most atheists who take this approach with me grew up in nominal Christian homes Typically, they have little to no understanding of Evangelical theology and practice. Lacking knowledge and understanding of that which they criticize, these atheists set themselves up as the standard for deconversion. In their minds, anyone with any sense at all should be able to figure out there’s no God by the time he reaches sixth grade.
These hyperbolic atheists seem to not understand how Fundamentalist religious indoctrination and conditioning make it impossible for people to “see” the truth about God, Jesus, the Bible, and Christianity. I grew up in a dysfunctional Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) home. God, church, and the Bible permeated every aspect of my life. One-hundred-eighty times or more a year, I attended services and events that reinforced IFB theological and social beliefs and practices. That’s one service every other day. And then there were private acts of personal piety: daily prayer and Bible reading.
At the age of five, I told my mom that God wanted me to be a preacher when I grew up. Ten years later, I got saved and baptized, and two weeks later I stood before the church and told them God was calling me to preach. Several weeks after that, I preached my first sermon. At the age of nineteen, I enrolled at Midwestern Baptist College to study for the ministry. I married a preacher’s daughter. Together, we spent twenty-five years in the ministry. My life was all about the Evangelical God.
I spent almost fifty years in the Evangelical bubble. In the bubble, everything made sense; everything was internally consistent. Imagine a world where everyone has similar beliefs and moral values. Imagine where everything modeled to you as a child by adults and people in positions of authority reinforces IFB beliefs and practices. Imagine being part of a sect that separated itself from the “world”; from everything contrary to their version of “truth.” Imagine long lists of rules and regulations (church standards) that governed virtually every aspect of your life, from the length of your hair to the clothing you wear. Imagine being taught that God is all-knowing and all-seeing, and he will punish any deviations from church standards. All of these things taken together make one thing very clear: I couldn’t have been anything other than what I was.
My path in life was predetermined by my upbringing and intense religious conditioning and indoctrination. By the time I was old enough to understand life, it was already too late. Both counselors I have had over the years have told me that it is remarkable that I escaped the Evangelical bubble — especially as a preacher. By the time people reach the age of fifty, they rarely are willing to abandon beliefs they have held their entire lives. For me personally, I had invested my entire life in servitude to God and the church. I had sacrificed my financial and physical well-being seeking spiritual fulfillment and eternal life. The sunk costs were so great that it was almost impossible for me to walk away (and for Polly to walk away with me). Yet, I did. Why? Because I valued intellectual honesty. So stupid I was not. When my beliefs were challenged by evidence I couldn’t overcome, I changed my beliefs. And that’s why I am an atheist today.
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.
A few days ago, I received an email from an eighty-one-year-old woman named Wanda Sims. Sims read all of two posts before sending me a message that God allegedly laid upon their heart. My brief response follows. All spelling and grammar in the original.
There is one Go ,in 3 persons Father, Son Holy Spirit.
Sims provides no evidence for her claim there is one God, uh I mean three Gods, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As most Christians do when they come to this site to deliver to me a message from their peculiar version of God, Sims makes all sorts of claims without providing any evidence for them. She presupposes that her God is the one true GO, and all others deities are false. Thus Sims is an atheist too.
God is love!!
I see no evidence in our world that this claim is true. In fact, what I do see is that God is anything but love. Look at all violence, pain, suffering, and death in the world. Where is God? Even in the Bible we see a God, as Richard Dawkins suggests:
“is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
I would love Sims to take the events of Genesis 6-9 (Noah’s Flood) and justify her claim that God is love. Her God drowned millions of people, including children, infants, and fetuses. What an awesome God!
I pray you will have your eyes opened ,and the truth will guide you to see truth.
My eyes today are more open than they ever have been. If Sims wants me to see and know “truth,” I suggest that she share it with me. Let’s talk about “truth, Wanda. I’m game, are you?
You gave up on God, he still loves you. If you repent he is faithfull and just to forgive you.
I didn’t give up on God. I weighed the central claims of Christianity in the balance and found them wanting. Surely Sims would want me to follow the evidence and believe as many true things as possible.
How does Sims know God still loves me? According to countless Evangelical zealots, I am an apostate; a reprobate; a tool of Satan; an enemy of God. Based on the teachings of the Bible, God doesn’t love me. I have crossed a line of no return. I have been repeatedly told that I am a modern-day Judas, a son of perdition. Did Jesus savingly love Judas? Of course not.
I put Sims’ claims to the test. I just repented of all my sins, even the “secret” ones, and asked Jesus to save me from my sins. Did God forgive me? Is it really that easy? Nothing more is required of me but to repent and believe? Good to know. I am now s-a-v-e-d! 🙂 Yes, Wanda, this is me mocking you and your silly, bankrupt gospel.
I don’t want to be your BFF, but my heart hearts for you and those you have lead astray.
That’s good, because why would I want to be friends with someone who doesn’t respect me? Sims chose to deliberately ignore my requests on the Contact page. She sent me a preachy email, hoping that I would see the “light.” She paid no attention to my background, thinking that her rambling email would do anything to return me to the faith.
I’m not a Crack pot
I don’t know about that. What should I make of someone who seeks out strangers on the Internet and emails them? What should I make of someone who shows no regard for me; whose only goal is to put in a good word for Jesus? Jesus Fucking Christ, I am a fellow human being. How about treating me like one?
I spent fifty years in Evangelical Christianity. I pastored churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan for twenty-five years. I preached over 4,000 sermons, and spent 20,000 hours reading and studying the Bible. I am confident I know more about the Bible and Christianity than Sims goes. What possibly could she say to me that I don’t already know?
Of course, Sims read none of my autobiographical writing, so maybe she doesn’t know these things. If so, I would like to share with her what God says in Proverbs 18:13: Answering before listening is both stupid and rude.
just a 81 yr old woman that loves the Lord and have seen his love,beauty,miraculous works and mercy and love.
And I am just a sixty-five-year-old man who loves his wife of forty-five years, six grown adult children, thirteen grandchildren, and cats named Joe Meower and Socks. I have seen their love, beauty, mercy, and works. My family is the only God I need.
I pray you find your way back to this one true and loving God.
Well, as I mentioned above, I repented, so I am good to go. All praise be to Loki, the one true God of rural northwest Ohio.
Saved by Reason,
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.
Today, I received an email from an Evangelical using a fake email address: godlovesyou@gmail.com. Coward. 🙂
What follows is my response to God Loves You. My response is indented. All spelling and grammar in the original.
Bruce, you know that God has been trying to reach you all your life. You can’t escape Him. He’s real whether you believe Him or not. He’s done so much for you.
I know no such thing. If my life tells me anything about God it is this: his phone line is disconnected. God’s is supposedly the creator of all things; the sovereign lord, ruler, and king. Yet, according to God Loves You (GLY), the Christian God has been trying to reach me. God has every tool and method at his disposal, yet the best he is able to do is send people such as GLY to pass me a note. If God wants to reach me, why not contact me directly? Send me an email, a text, or call me on the telephone (260-657-0019). Better yet, if I am so important to God, why not send Jesus to my doorstep and have him take me out to lunch? I guarantee you that if Jesus shows up and takes me out to eat, I am going to listen.
Instead, God keeps sending people such GLY; people who show me no respect; people who preach at me; people who insult me; people who attack me and my family and the readers of this blog; people who lack a basic understanding of what the Bible teaches.
I am here, God. Come and get me.
GLY claims God is real, yet he provided no evidence for his claim. This is a common ploy by Evangelical zealots. They are presuppositionalists. God is self-evident to them, so they think he should be self-evident to everyone. Not me. Convince me that the God of the Protestant Christian Bible exists and he is as the Bible portrays him, I might believe. I say “might” because, let’s face it, the God of the Bible is a violent, genocidal son of a bitch, so I doubt I would want to worship and obey such a malevolent deity.
GLY claims God has done so much for me. Really? What has God done for me? Virtually everything in my life can be traced back to material, biological means. The few unexplainable events in my life are not enough to convince that GLY’s God exists.
I’m sorry for any hurt that humans and the church have caused you. People will hurt you, this earth is ruled by Satan, but this is not our home forever. The teacher is always silent during the test. Whatever happened to you, whatever you’re going through, it’s just a test to see if you’re faithful.
I did not leave Christianity because of the hurt caused by humans and the church. If you really want to know why I deconverted, please read the posts on the WHY? page. Seek and ye shall find, GLY.
I am an atheist, so I don’t believe in the existence of deities, especially the God of the Bible. Since God created Satan, it stands to reason that I don’t believe in her either. Earth is ruled, controlled, and dominated by humans, other animals, and natural sources. I see no evidence for the claim that the earth is ruled by Satan. Again, I am open to being proved wrong. Just have Satan contact me and we can talk.
Evidently, whatever I have experienced in this life is a “test” from God. Of course, the giver of this test is, to quote GLY, “silent.” How, then, can I know it is God testing me? As an atheist, I live by the maxim, “shit happens.” I can explain my present trials, suffering, and adversity without invoking the name of God or Satan. MY health problems are easily explainable, albeit not easily treatable. I have accepted that my suffering, the unrelenting pain and debility, is my lot in life. I do what I can to ameliorate my symptoms, hoping to live as long as possible. What more can I do but get up each morning and try to do my best?
I find that this is a far better way to live than wondering whether God is, at any given moment, testing, trying, or punishing me.
Eventually youre going to die, which place will you choose?
There’s been countless of testimonies of those who died and have seen the afterlife (check YouTube!). Everyone who has died has said the same things and Jesus sent them back to tell their story.
Yes, I am, sooner, than later. I know that I am at the end of my life. When I die, I choose cremation and nothingness. I see no evidence for Heaven, Hell, or an afterlife. Those claiming to have died and gone to Heaven and Hell are delusional liars. The only evidence they provide for their claims are fanciful stories. I find it interesting that none of these stories agree with any of the others. Why is that? Humans have been making up “supernatural” stories for thousands of years. The Bible is one collection of these stories.
If GLY wants me to believe these stories are true, he is going to have to provide empirical evidence for them. I will not take his word for it.
There’s a lot of scientific and historical evidence that Jesus was real and many witnesses to that (Google and learn yourself!).
I wonder if GLY forgets or doesn’t know that I was a college-trained Evangelical pastor; that I pastored churches for twenty-five years; that I know the extant source material for the existence of Jesus inside and out. There is not, as GLY says, “a lot of scientific and historical evidence that Jesus was real and many witnesses to that.” There are the Gospels and a handful of disputed historical mentions of Jesus. That’s it. I know of no scientific evidence that proves ANYTHING about Jesus. All we can know is that a Jewish apocalyptic preacher named Jesus lived and died in Palestine two thousand years ago.
But what do I know? According to GLY, I need to “Google” and learn the “truth.” 🙂
I know you’ve been hurt, but in heaven, there will be no more suffering. I promise. Turn back to God.
GLY knows no such thing. He has read a couple of posts on this site and decided that is enough for him to deconstruct my life. He is lazy and lacks curiosity. Search Google, GLY, search Google. You will find thousands of blog posts I have written and podcast interviews I have given.
Life is suffering. Live long enough and you will suffer, sometimes horribly. I have an advanced degree in suffering. I don’t need the promise of salvation and Heaven to make it through life. I find meaning and purpose in my wife of forty-five years (my best friend and lover), our six children, our thirteen grandchildren, the Cincinnati Reds, Cincinnati Bengals, and this blog. Yes, I am in a lot of pain. Yes, sometimes I want to die. But, I remind myself that I have much to live for. I don’t need the promise of a room in God’s Trump Hotel to give my life meaning and purpose. I feel sorry for people who have no sense of meaning and purpose outside of the hope of eternal life. They have bought into the Apostle Paul’s lie: if we only have hope in this life we are miserable (1 Corinthians 15:9).
GLY implores me to turn back to God. Nope, not going to happen. I have weighed the central claims of Christianity in the balance and found them wanting. What is there about Christianity that I don’t know, GLY? By all means, educate me. 🙂
If you’re still alive, Hes still waiting to give you another chance. I will pray for your hardened heart to be softened, for you to come back and have a relationship with Him again. God is good but the world is not, Satan has deceived you.
What a pathetic God Jesus is, who is forced to wait on fallible, frail sinners. If God wants to save me, he knows where I am.
The only thing that “hardens” my heart toward Christianity is the endless emails and social media messages I receive from the GLYs of the world. Why would I ever want to worship their God? They bully, badger, threaten, and judge me, yet they want me to worship their God. No thanks. GLY and others like them are the worst possible advertisement for Jesus and his wonderful, matchless, awesome, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious grace.
If you want to spark your faith again, watch Isaiah Saldivar and Vlad Savchuk on YouTube. Learn about the deliverance ministry and casting out demons! We need to open our eyes to the supernatural, the spiritual realm. There’s so many testimonies out there now (YouTube – Delafe Testimonies), that show and prove the true existence of God!!
I have seen two demons in my life: my youngest grandsons. 🙂 Boy, are they “devilish.”
It is clear to me that GLY has a low evidentiary standard for believing things. If he sees it on the Internet, it must true. I have a much higher evidentiary standard than GLY and other Christians like him. YouTube ain’t going to cut it. Gawd, do I actually have to say this?
God did not create this world for us to suffer and have pain. The result of our sins and our ancestors sins have caused us much burden.
Sigh, Sigh, Sigh. Ugh. 🙂
If God is the creator of all things and controls EVERYTHING, he is culpable for pain, suffering, and death. Either God is all-powerful, or he is not. Either he is all-knowing, or he is not. Either he is everywhere, or he is not. Orthodox Christianity says God is all-everything. Based on the teachings of historic Christianity, GLY is preaching heresy. OMG, repent, GLY, lest you end up in Hell when you die! 🙂
I believe that you may be curious about the supernatural so I suggest looking into deliverance. As Jesus cast out demons and heal the sick, you too can be healed! Whatever sickness you’re going through, you will be healed in the name of Jesus! Seek deliverance, Seek Him! Dare God to reveal Himself to you! HE WILL!!!
No, I am not curious, in the least, about the supernatural. I am a materialist. I have no room in my worldview for supernatural mumbo-jumbo.
Let me put GLY’s claims to the test! Jesus, I believe you heal people. I double-dog dare you to reveal yourself to me. I triple-dog dare you to heal me of fibromyalgia, gastroparesis, and degenerative spine disease. Jesus, if you heal me of these things, I will abandon atheism and worship you as my Savior and my God. Okay, Jesus, the ball is in your court.
GLY promises that God WILL hear and answer my prayer. If he doesn’t, that mean GLY is a liar and a false prophet worthy of being stoned to death.
Jesus loves you. God loves you. I love you.
Jesus is dead, God doesn’t exist, and GLY doesn’t know me. None of them “love.” me. I am sick and tired of shallow, cheap, sentimental Christian “love.” Gag me with a spoon. I have all the love I need in life — no Jesus, God, or Christians needed.
Saved by Reason,
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.
