The telling of my deconversion story brings all sorts of responses from Evangelical Christians. Some of my critics comb through my life with a head-lice comb, hoping to find something that invalidates my past life as a pastor. If they can find doctrinal error or heresy, this allows them to declare that I was a false prophet, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, someone who never was a True Christian®. These interlocutors bring me before the tribunal of their peculiar beliefs, asking questions meant to suss out my true spiritual nature. If they can determine that I was never saved, it allows them to dismiss my life out of hand. People wanting to discredit me in this manner almost always find sufficient evidence to warrant them saying, Bruce Gerencser was never a Christian. (Please see Gone but Not Forgotten: 22 Years Later San Antonio Calvinists Still Preaching Against Bruce Gerencser.)
Other Evangelical Christians, unable to square my past devotion to Jesus with their once-saved-always-saved soteriology, critically examine my life inside and out, looking for signs of trauma. I often get emails from Evangelicals apologizing for whatever psychological harm was caused to me by churches and other Christians. They wrongly think that I am not a Christian today because of some hurt in my past; that I left the ministry and Christianity because of hurtful things done to me by mean-spirited Christians. These “loving” critics — armchair psychologists — view me as they would an abused puppy. I pee all over the carpets of my life because someone or a group of someones repeatedly beat me with a rolled-up Columbus Dispatch. My deconversion is the result, then, of the harm caused to me by these unloving, unkind Christians; and that what I really need is to find a church congregation that will scoop up my broken spirit and sweetly love me back to Jesus. Ack! Gag me with a spoon!
Early on, I framed my loss of faith in purely intellectual terms. I knew that admitting that there was an emotional component to my deconversion would give people cause to say that the only reason I wasn’t a Christian is that I got my feelings hurt. I wanted people to see me as an intellectual who weighed the claims of Christianity and found them wanting. And of course, that’s exactly what I did. The primary reason I am an atheist today is because I came to believe that Christianity was false; that God, Jesus, and the Bible were not what Christian preachers and apologists claimed they were. (The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.) Once the Bible lost its authority and hold over me, I was free to rationally and skeptically examine, analyze, and judge its teachings. I owe much to Dr. Bart Ehrman for showing me that what I had been taught about the Bible and what I had preached for decades was a lie. Once the Bible was rendered human and errant, the slide down the slippery slope of unbelief was quick, leading to a sixty-six-car pile-up at the bottom of the hill. Try as I might to find solace in Christian liberalism or Christian Universalism, I found these way stations intellectually lacking. In the end, agnosticism and atheism were the only labels that honestly and adequately explained my beliefs or lack thereof.
Today, I can look back over the past two decades and I can see that there was certainly emotional harm caused to me by fellow Christians, colleagues in the ministry, and Evangelical family members. The twenty-five years I spent in the ministry brought me in contact with numerous Jesus-loving abusers and sociopaths. By the time I left the ministry in 2005 — three years before I divorced Jesus — I was burned out. I was tired of having to deal with hateful, mean-spirited, self-centered church members. I was more than tired of church business meetings and board meetings that were little more than bloody, violent boxing matches sandwiched between invocations and benedictions. By the time I reached the end of my career, all I wanted to do was show up on Sundays and preach and then go home. The ministry had extracted a tremendous amount of emotional capital from me, a debt that has taken almost a decade of secular counseling to recover from. That said, I am not an oft-beaten puppy cowering in the corner of life. I embrace and own the past damage caused by Christianity, and I, with weeping and lamentations, bemoan the psychological harm I caused to my family and church congregants.
Today, I now know that the reasons I am not a Christian are legion. To focus on the psychological aspects of my loss of faith alone paints an incomplete picture. For those determined to view me as an abused puppy, all I can do is try to explain through my writing how and why I left my marriage to Jesus and became an atheist. It’s my story after all. Who better to tell it than I, right?
Are you an Evangelical-turned-atheist? Do you have former Christian friends and family members who attempt to psychoanalyze your deconversion? Please share your experiences in the comment section.
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.
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.
Several months ago, I received an email from an Evangelical man who shared with me that he found my story confusing. This is a common problem for Evangelicals when they encounter this site. The reason for their confusion is simple: they can’t fit the narrative of my life within the confines of their theological box — in this man’s case, the Evangelical box. To which I say, that ain’t my problem. All I know is that I once was a Christian, and now I am not. It really is that simple.
The email writer raised several issues, so I thought I would take a stab at publicly answering them. My response is indented.
I stumbled on this site when reading Don Williams words about his daughter who just lost her husband to a shooting in Cameroon Africa.
The articles why you became a Calvinist part 1 and 2 caught my attention and then coming up to date. I can’t help but wonder if what is really being expressed in your writings is like warnings to readers of what can happen when following the teachings of man/men as several men’s intellectual or their writings were sought after. And eventually being led to humanistic view point with no return.
The email writer suggests that what happened to me is that I left the Jesus and the teachings of the Bible and followed after the teachings of mere men. This ultimately led me away from Christianity to humanism. I agree with the man, but I would say the same of him and every person who has ever claimed to be a follower of Jesus. Jesus was a man. The apostles were men. Paul was a man. The authors of the books of the Bible were men. Christianity, if it is anything, is a religion based on the writings of men. All John Calvin and other Calvinistic men did was teach me their spin on the Bible — men explaining what other men said and meant.
As a humanist, I believe that the highest authorities on earth are men and women. Suggesting that there is some sort of supernatural force at work — i.e. God — is a faith proposition, not a fact. Evangelicals say God, through supernatural inspiration, wrote the sixty-six books of the Protestant Bible. The evidence for this claim is what, exactly? “The Bible says” is not valid evidence. Believing the Bible is anything other than a collection of books written by men requires faith, a faith I do not have.
Not wanting sympathy or giving any it’s hard to figure the atheist part because is there really any such thing because everyone has something or someone that has first place in their life Or that they /we idolize —making it an idol or to be a god of our life.
The writer demands I use the Bible as the standard by which I measure/judge my life. Thus, he believes there’s no such thing as an atheist; that everyone worships/idolizes someone or something. Again, the email writer nails it. Of course I have people in my life I worship: my wife of forty years, my six children, my twelve grandchildren, and the Cincinnati Reds. If we worship what we love, then I indeed worship the people that matter to me. However, they are not my God or gods. I don’t exalt them above human experience. I don’t pray to them or call on them to guide/direct my life. And most of all, I never say my life is worthless without them.
Answer to the question about being called to be a pastor can’t see how that can be either because IF were truly called then would still be.
The writer uses an inane circular argument that I find irritating every time a Christian zealot tries to use it on me. I could never have been “called” to a pastor, because if I had been, I would still be a pastor. The Bible says that the calling of God is irrevocable. “Once a pastor, always a pastor,” the thinking goes. This is akin to me saying I once was married, but now I am divorced. I couldn’t have “really” been married, because if I had been, I would still be married. Silly, right?
The email writer can’t square my life with his peculiar beliefs, so the only option he has is to declare that I was never a “true” pastor; never a True Christian®. Wouldn’t it be much easier for him to admit that people become pastors and leave the ministry for all sorts of the reasons. The same could be said for people who were once Christians and now they are atheists, agnostics, humanists, pagans, spiritualists, Buddhists, et al.
All I ask readers to do is accept my story at face value. Instead of trashing me, how about taking a hard look at your theological beliefs? How about pondering the reasons I give for leaving the ministry and Christianity? (Please see Why?) Of course, this rarely happens because THE BIBLE SAYS trumps human experience. This kind of thinking leads to cognitive dissonance.
And about a book you hope to finish writing or finishing your book maybe before the rapture if I understood correctly, of which if I understand correctly an atheist or socialist don’t believe in any such thing as a rapture or being caught up?
Sarcasm, bro, sarcasm. The only rapture I believe in takes place between the sheets in my bedroom.
Don’t much like pointing a finger as it usually has three aiming back- but to unashamedly admit being a pastor of baptist churches and even had started 5 I believe I read then admitting turning to a gospel of a different kind in the name of Calvinist —was that to stir up discord ???
Not at all, but I know my story does trouble a number of Evangelical readers. I am just one man with a story to tell. While I write on all sorts of subjects, the focus of this blog remains my story; my upbringing; my life as a pastor; my deconversion; my present life as an atheist and a humanist. I try to be open and honest, even when it causes personal embarrassment.
Does reading my story lead some people away from Christianity? Yes. Is that my goal? No. Is it gratifying to know that some people find my writing helpful? Yes. Shouldn’t all writers want their work to be well received, to be helpful to others? Yes!
Is there possibly warning with that to be careful because allowing teachings of men to fill our mind can drive our hearts away from the one true foundation ? Is your message to readers to be careful to gird up the loins of our mind? And to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees which is???
No, the real message is that what Evangelicals believe about the Bible cannot be rationally sustained; that the teachings Evangelicals claim are authoritative and infallible are anything but.
If you haven’t read any of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books, I encourage you to do so. I am confident that his books will disabuse any Evangelical reader of the notion that the Bible is an inspired, inerrant, and infallible text. Whatever the Bible might be, it is not what Evangelicals say it is.
Not sure why I even bothered to write but just happened on your site from the tragedy that occurred to the Wessco family Tuesday and thought maybe it’s meant to be so slander me if you like because it may turn out for good.
You wrote me either out of divine direction from God or because you wanted to. I’m going with the latter. You wrote, and here’s my response. I am not sure why you thought I would slander you. I don’t know you, so I am in no position to render any sort of judgment.
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.
Warning! Snark, a few stray cuss words, and discussion of penis size ahead. You have been warned. Has this warning ever stopped anyone from reading? I doubt it, but at least it keeps easily offended Evangelicals from sending me an email that details their outrage. I expect my writing to offend some Evangelicals. Would I be doing my job if it didn’t? After all, the Bible says the Word of God causes offense. So it is with the errant, fallible, but hopefully inspiring words of the one true God of this blog, Bruce Almighty. (Maybe you have seen the movie about me starring Jim Carrey?) Enjoy!
Recently, an ardent Calvinist left several comments on the post titled, Why I Became a Calvinist — Part Six. Evidently, my responses rubbed the fur on the proverbial cat the wrong way, and the offended Calvinist decided to let me know what he or she thought of me by emailing me a further comment. My response is indented.
Bruce, why do you have a problem listening (here, reading)?
Well, I do have a hearing problem. I have to turn the television up quite loud to hear the programs I watch. Outside of that, I do my best to listen to what others have to say, be it to my face or in a comment on this blog. Your problem, then, is not that I am not listening to you, but that I refuse to let your comments go unchallenged. I will call bullshit every time someone tells me that they came to their beliefs — in your case, five-point Evangelical Calvinism — just by reading the Bible. You were influenced religiously by several outside sources before you became a Calvinist. Thus, your mind was filled with presuppositions about the Bible, God, etc. This does not, in any way, make you or anyone else inferior. All it means is that it is impossible to disconnect ourselves from our past experiences and beliefs.
Why don’t you take what is said, and deal with that? or ask questions, instead of filling in the blanks with your biases and reaching your conclusions? I have a law degree — we’ll see what you make of that — and I expect some “evidentiary” considerations instead of your atheistic religious bias always telling me what my past was or is and what I’m currently doing and what everybody else is doing as a result of what they believe.
Lots of educated people read this blog, including lawyers, doctors, and college professors. Lots of fast food workers, factory employees, and domestic workers read it too. And then there’s the preachers, evangelists, missionaries of various theological persuasions who read this blog. In fact, a large percentage of the thousands of people who read this blog are professing Christians — albeit not your flavor of Jesus Ice Cream®. I am not sure why you felt it necessary to mention that you are a lawyer, other than you wanted to assert your educational superiority over me — as if having a law degree has anything to do theology.
You came to a public forum and commented. I responded, as did several other people. That’s how the process works. (And, if you haven’t read the Comment Policy please do so.) All Evangelicals are given one opportunity to leave at least one comment. You were given an opportunity to leave several comments. What was your objective? Surely, according to your theology, most of the people who frequent this blog are dead in trespasses and sin, having minds and hearts alienated from God. We have nothing to offer someone who is as astute as you; someone filled with the Holy Ghost and knowledge of all things John-Boy-Calvin. Surely, you had to know that commenting was akin to casting pearls before swine. Yet, you commented anyway, whether out of divine conviction, a need to defend the doctrines of grace, or a need to hear yourself talk. And that’s fine. Evangelicals are free to comment on this blog. What they are NOT free to do is shit all over me or anyone else on this site with whom they disagree. Pointed, direct comments are always welcome. What follows in your comment below, is not. And, I might add, not very Christian.
(You could benefit from a formal secular education. Your religious education did not prepare you to think honestly to analyze facts.) I must admit I smirk and laugh at your small comments on Black Collar criminals, but otherwise you’re not credible to take apart everybody and everything because you think you’ve got all the answers based on your latest religious bias.
Now it is time for a dick measuring contest. Who, between us, knows more about the Bible, theology, and Christian history? When people such as yourself take this approach, I “smirk and laugh” at their ignorance. I know I spent tens of thousands of hours reading and studying the Bible, reading theological tomes, and listening to “sound” Biblical preaching (in person and on cassette tape). Thus, the real issue is not my lack of education/knowledge, but the fact that you disagree with my opinions, conclusions, and current beliefs. You said nothing in this comment that overturned my responses to your comments. In fact, you ignored what I said, choosing instead to be outraged and offended. And once an Evangelical reaches this level in the game, watch out, a double-barrel shot at me personally is sure to follow. And you, my friend, hit the target square. You have completed the game. You are a w-i-n-n-e-r!
Your story fits many who have fallen in Scripture, after it, are falling right up until today. You and your scoffers are nothing new and you have nothing new to go up against the God who endures you after he created you and set you up, apparently, as an example of those who do not inherit eternal life.
Yes, the Bible says all sorts of things about people such as Bruce Gerencser and his merry band of apostate followers. So what? I know what the Bible says, from Table of Contents to Concordance, the last book in the Bible. What you seemingly fail to understand is that the Bible has no authority over me. Once I came to realize that the Bible was NOT what Evangelicals say it is — the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God — its hold was broken. After leaving the ministry, I decided to go back and re-read the Bible, trying as much as possible to not let my previous theological training affect my interpretations and conclusions. I concluded that much of what I was taught and believed didn’t fit what I read, or at the very least that there were multiple ways to interpret particular texts. Dr. Bart Ehrman, a renowned New Testament scholar, suggested reading each book of the Bible as a stand-alone book, letting each author speak for himself. I recommend every person do this, Christian or not. Of course, such an approach is death to Evangelical theology with its complex systematic theologies, hermeneutics, and harmonizations. Once freed from these things, the Biblical text took on completely different meanings. I briefly mentioned one of them to you in my comment: that the first three chapters of Genesis do not support Evangelical Trinitarian monotheism; that there were/are actually multiple Gods; that monotheism is a later theological development; that it can be argued today that most Christians are still polytheists with their worship of the Gods Father, Son, and Spirit. (A good book on this subject is The Evolution of God by Robert Wright.)
My conclusion was simple, albeit one birthed out of much intellectual and psychological pain and struggle: Christianity no longer made any sense. I wrote about this in the post titled, The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.
You are wicked, you were wicked from birth, you demonstrate knowledge doesn’t save you, you claim you had a faith and shrank back from it, you do not fear God — but likely will fear an expectation of judgment soon. When you have faith that is a gift from God, simultaneous with Him taking up residence in you, you don’t get deconverted.
I love being w-i-c-k-e-d, oh so wicked. Time for a sex orgy, complete with an aborted fetus hors d’oeuvre. Can’t stop there though. There’s more sinning for me to do. I am a bad man; an evil man; a depraved man; an apostate man; a servant of Satan; man who hates the thrice holy Evangelical God. You should meet some of the wicked commenters on this blog. Why, their vile behavior puts me to shame. They spend every waking hour thinking about ways to destroy Christianity. And when they are not doing that, they have sex with the lights on and burp without saying excuse me. Or, then again, maybe we have normal lives just like yours save for believing in your God, or any other deity for that matter.
Your remonstrations (Don’t you love that word, a throw back to the days of Jacob Arminius, John Calvin, and the Synod of Dort.) and condemnations have no effect on me or other atheists. Countless commenters before you have come to this blog to set the ex-Evangelical preacher Bruce Gerencser straight. At least you didn’t quote any Bible verses, so thanks for that. That said, your comments are rooted in your peculiar interpretation of the Protestant Bible. What you fail to see and understand is that the Bible no longer has any power over me. I have figured out the magician’s trick, and I am no longer fooled by his sleight of hand. So it is with the Bible. Once the Biblical authors are left to their own devices and not hemmed in by sectarian beliefs and practices, the Bible loses its supernatural influence. It may or may not still be a book worth reading, but I no longer have to worry about its powerless threatenings. There’s No Heaven, No Hell, No God, No Jesus, No Worries, Bro.
You never were anything more than a nominal Christian enamoured of human competitions for ideas… you’ve just moved along the continuum of unbelief, lately blathering that science has now come along to defeat the human idea of god.
How can you possibly make such a judgement about my character and past work as a pastor? You don’t know me personally, and you haven’t even bothered to invest much time in reading my autobiographical writing. (You might want to start on the WHY page.) The people who knew me as a pastor will all tell you that I was a devoted, committed follower of Jesus Christ; that my life gave evidence of someone who knew Jesus personally.
I know you are having a hard time squaring my past with what you believe theologically. I get it, but that’s not my problem. I once was saved, and now I am not. I once was a Christian, and now I am not. I expect readers to accept my “testimony” at face value, and I promise to do the same for them. When you said you were a Christian, I believed you. I have never said to a Christian, “oh you aren’t a ‘real’ Christian” because I found some defect or contradiction in their story. Atheism allows me the freedom to accept people as they are, including you. How about you do the same? Oh, wait, you can’t! The B-i-b-l-e says . . .
It’s a good thing you came clean cause churches are filled with nominal Christians that don’t wash out or don’t wash soon enough. They are the bane of Christianity, but God is and will be glorified in his antithetical use of them.
Of course, you are the “real” deal, right? You are the gold standard by which to judge the faith of others. You are the grand prize behind door number two on “Calvinism is Right.” This is a common approach used by Calvinists. A former ministerial colleague of mine, Jose “Joe” Maldonado, preached a multi-part sermon series about me using this very approach. Unable to square what he knew about me with his Calvinistic soteriology, Joe determined that I was never a True Christian®; that I was a deceiver, liar, and apostate. You can read more about his “exposé” here: Jose Maldonado Says I Never Was a Christian.
I have failed at many things in my life, and there are certainly things that I did as a pastor that I regret or wish I had the opportunity to do differently. That said, most of the people who called me pastor would tell you that I genuinely loved and cared for them; that I taught them the Word of God and encouraged them in faith and holiness. My preaching was passionate and honest. Attempting to tear me down will not work. I have survived over a decade of deconstruction by countless Evangelical zealots. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but emails and blog comments will not hurt me. I know what I know, and people who knew me do too. You have constructed in your mind a version of Bruce Gerencser that has no connection with reality. This is a common problem. You read a few posts, concluded what kind of man I am, rendered judgment, and then, with a wing and a prayer, let me know what you thought. Mission accomplished, Goose.
Go back to school and take some general degree requirements like Western Civ, Logic, Math, Anthropology. You’ll enjoy them, you can be the “teacher” student and get some human worship go’n there for you. Eat, drink and be merry, cause tomorrow you die. (P.S. Was an English major so was compelled to correct my earlier reply, albeit after I hit send.)
I’ll ignore your final attempt to passively-aggressively attack my education and intellectual capabilities. I get it, you have a dick the size of John Holmes and I have one the size of President Trump. You are a lawyer, an erudite intellectual, and I am not. Believe what you will, it matters not.
I have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to your earlier comments. Everything you wrote belongs to you and you alone. Maybe the Holy Ghost changed your words? While I do have an editor, she does not edit comments, and the only time I do so is when a commenter violated the Comment Policy by posting a bunch of proof texts.
You have said your piece, and now I have said mine. Per the comment policy, you have used up your opportunity to put in a good word for Jesus. Have a blessed day. All honor, praise, and glory to Loki.
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.
Bruce Gerencser, Somerset Baptist Church, Early 1990’s
As many readers know, my wife, Polly, and I have six children. Our oldest child will turn forty in May, and our youngest will be twenty-six. We have two distinct families: the oldest three, a space of five years, and then the youngest three. The first group grew up in a strict Fundamentalist Baptist pastor’s home. Economically, during their childhoods, we lived from hand to mouth, and sometimes the hand didn’t quite reach. The latter grew up in a less-strict, more inclusive Evangelical pastor’s home. Economically, things greatly improved — especially from the late 1990s forward. What remained the same for both groups was the fact that their lives revolved around the church and my work as a pastor. It is in this context that my six children know me.
I left the ministry in 2005, and deconverted from Christianity in 2008. For the first time, my children, then ages fifteen through twenty-nine, experienced family life that did not revolve around the church. For the first time, Dad wasn’t the law by which they had to live. In 2009, I sent a letter to family, friends, and parishioners, that said, in part:
I have come to a place in life where I can no longer put off writing this letter. I have dreaded this day because I know what is likely to follow after certain people receive it. I have decided I can’t control how others will react to this letter, so it is far more important to clear the air and make sure everyone knows the facts about Bruce Gerencser.
I won’t bore you with a long, drawn out history of my life. I am sure each of you has an opinion about how I have lived my life and the decisions I have made. I also have an opinion about how I have lived my life and decisions I made. I am my own worst critic.
Religion, in particular Baptist Evangelical and Fundamentalist religion, has been the essence of my life, from my youth up. My being is so intertwined with religion that the two are quite inseparable. My life has been shaped and molded by religion and religion touches virtually every fiber of my being.
I spent most of my adult life pastoring churches, preaching, and being involved in religious work to some degree or another. I pastored thousands of people over the years, preached thousands of sermons, and participated in, and led, thousands of worship services.
To say that the church was my life would be an understatement. As I have come to see, the Church was actually my mistress, and my adulterous affair with her was at the expense of my wife, children, and my own self-worth.
Today, I am publicly announcing that the affair is over. My wife and children have known this for a long time, but now everyone will know.
The church robbed me of so much of my life and I have no intention of allowing her to have one more moment of my time. Life is too short. I am dying. We all are. I don’t want to waste what is left of my life chasing after things I now see to be vain and empty.
….
I know some of you are sure to ask, what does your wife think of all of this? Quite surprisingly, she is in agreement with me on many of these things. Not all of them, but close enough that I can still see her standing here. Polly is no theologian, she is not trained in theology as I am. She loves to read fiction. I was able to get her to read Bart Ehrman’s book Misquoting Jesus and she found the book to be quite an eye-opener.
Polly is free to be whomever and whatever she wishes. If she wants to start attending the local Fundamentalist Baptist church she is free to do so, and even has my blessing. For now, she doesn’t. She may never believe as I believe, but in my new way of thinking, that is OK. I really don’t care what others think. Are you happy? Are you at peace? Are you living a good, productive life? Do you enjoy life? Yes, to these questions is good enough for me.
I have six children, three of whom are out on their own. For many years I was the spiritual patriarch of the family. Everyone looked to me for the answers. I feel somewhat burdened over my children. I feel as if I have left them out on their own with no protection. But, I know they have good minds and can think and reason for themselves. Whatever they decide about God, religion, politics, or American League baseball is fine with me.
All I ask of my wife and children is that they allow me the freedom to be myself, that they allow me to journey on in peace and love. Of course, I still love a rousing discussion about religion, the Bible, politics, etc. I want my family to know that they can talk to me about these things, and anything else for that matter, any time they wish.
The best thing I ever did for Polly and our children is to say to them, you are free. Choose your own path. At the time, I received quite a bit of criticism for doing this. “How dare I cut them loose and ask them to choose their own path when I had, for the most part, dictated their path for them!” While I understood where my critics were coming from, I saw no way to handle things other than setting everyone free. It was time for everyone to fly on his or her own, much like the fledgling kicked out of the nest,
Each of my children has plotted his or her own course. None of them stayed in the Evangelical church, and neither are they all atheists. Some of them are religious/spiritual, and others are indifferent towards religion. Now, this doesn’t mean I agree with all of the choices they have made. What’s different is that they no longer have to conform to Evangelical beliefs/practices/morality/ethics. They don’t have to bow to Bruce Almighty’s authority and interpretation of the Bible. They are, in every way, FREE. Of course, the same goes for their parents. In the Gerencser family, freedom is a two-way street. We may disagree on specifics, but we put our family relationships first. Too bad we didn’t choose this way of life sooner, but crying over the past is a waste of time. What we have is the present and each and every day ahead until we meet our end.
Bruce Gerencser, 2016
Polly and I are blessed to have twelve grandchildren — ten girls and two boys — ages nine months to eighteen years. Our grandchildren only know us post-Jesus, post-church, post-ministry. They have never seen us pray or read the Bible, attended church with us, nor heard me preach. They know Nana as a woman who makes them awesome food and works at Sauder’s Woodworking. Grandpa they know as the man who takes lots of photographs and comes to their games. They know nothing about our previous lives as Pastor and Mrs. Bruce Gerencser. They know nothing about our travels and the churches I pastored. We bought our home in 2007. This is the only house our grandchildren will ever know us to live in. And that’s okay. We hope to live long enough for our grandchildren to grow up, become adults, and have families of their own. We hope that they will have wonderful memories of spending time with Nana and Grandpa. We hope after we are gone that they will drive by our home and have fond memories of playing in our big jungle of a back yard. Maybe they will wistfully say to their own children, “I remember when Nana and Grandpa planted this tree, that bush, or flowers.” Regardless, unlike our children, they will NOT have any memories of Grandpa preaching and Nana playing the piano. That part of our life is foreign to them. All of them, in time, will stumble upon this blog. They will read stories that deeply resonate with their grandparents and parents, but have no connection to them.
A couple of days ago, one of my sons required a letter from me stating that he had been baptized. He and his wife are becoming more active in church, and he wants to become a member. While I was typing up the letter, my son explained to his oldest daughter that I used to be a pastor and that I had baptized him at nearby Harrison Lake. She quizzically looked at me and said, “Grandpa, you were a pastor?” I replied, “Yes. I was for twenty-five years. Someday, when you are older, we will talk about it!” My granddaughter pondered for a moment what I said, and then moved on to other things. Someday, she will know the story of the life and times of Bruce Gerencser. For now, I am content to leave things as they are.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 61, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 40 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.
Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section. If you are a first-time commenter, please read the commenting policy before wowing readers with your words. All first-time comments are moderated. If you would like to contact Bruce directly, please use the contact form to do so.
Donations are always appreciated. Donations on a monthly basis can be made through Patreon. One-time donations can be made through PayPal.
I started preaching at age fifteen, enrolled at Midwestern Baptist College to study for the ministry at nineteen, married my wife at age twenty-one, and took my first church job a few months before I turned twenty-two. I was young, full of life, and raring to go for Jesus. I also was clueless about what awaited me in the ministry. Little did I know, that life would not turn out as Polly and I envisioned; that our fairy tale would not be one of love, peace, and potluck dinners; that our vision of a future with a white two-story home with a boy named Jason, a girl named Bethany, and a white picket fence would turn into a 12’x60′ trailer, six children, food stamps, and a $200 station wagon.
It’s common for young marrieds to have all sorts of hopes and dreams. Polly and I thought that God would surely use us in a mighty way to bring countless people to Christ; that we would be respected and rewarded for our hard work; that our children would grow up, get married, and follow in our footsteps. As a young man, I believed Jesus would always take care of me. He, after all, gave me a wonderful wife, blessed us with children, and favored the work we accomplished in his vineyard. Though Jesus never personally appeared to me, I saw all my ministerial success as coming directly from him. Boy, was I wrong!
One Tuesday in the early 1980s, I attended a Buckeye Baptist Fellowship Meeting at High Street Baptist Church in Columbus, Ohio. I thoroughly enjoyed the monthly pastors’ fellowships I attended at various Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches. These meetings were a time for me to shoot the breeze with my ministerial colleagues and listen to what I considered, then, to be great preaching. On this particular Tuesday, one of the speakers was Charles Mainous, the pastor at High Street. Mainous was known for his virulent anti-government sermons. At the time, the steeple of his church was red, white and blue, church members carried firearms, and posted warnings on the doors warned government agents of this fact. I had heard him several times before, so I knew what to expect. During his harangue, Mainous said that it was a sin for pastors to pay into Social Security; that it was up to God to take care of his preachers, not the government. If Catholic priests could take a vow of poverty and be tax exempt, so should Baptist preachers. I thought, “he’s right. God called me, God leads me, God talks to me, and God gives me my sermons to preach. Surely, God can take care of me when I get old.” And so, following Mainous’ advice, I filed for exemption from paying social security taxes on my ministerial income (and housing) (IRS Form 4361). I was twenty-five years old. Still physically fit, playing competitive basketball in the winter and softball in the summer, I looked good, felt good, and thought of myself as downright invincible. Jesus and Bruce were ready to take on the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world!
I thought that I would one day set up a retirement plan and the churches I pastored would pay into it, providing for my care when I retired. Not that I ever planned on retiring. My goal was to keep preaching until I died. I even thought it would be an awesome sermon illustration if my appointed time to die (Hebrews 9:27) was right at the end of one of my sermons. What a way to punctuate my message, right?
I am, however, still here, and the only thing that died was my relationship with Jesus. What did change was that the youthful preacher named Bruce Gerencser came down with mononucleosis in 1991 and almost died. For the first time, there was a chink in my supposedly invincible armor. I was sidelined from preaching for over a month, and mono left me with physical problems that I deal with to this day.
In 1997, after a year of unexplained fatigue and muscle pain, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. This forced me to reconsider the naïve notion that Jesus was going to take care of me. In 2000, I decided to opt back into Social Security. Unfortunately, the paltry wages I received from this point to 2005 when I left the ministry didn’t do much to improve the level of social security I would receive at retirement. My health continued to decline, and by 2005 I was totally disabled, unable to find meaningful, paying work that meshed with my disability. Since that time, we have been a one-wage-earner family.
I looked in vain for Jesus. He was there when I was healthy, but nowhere to be found when I was sick. Of course, he was just a figment of my imagination, but I really did believe he was a friend who would stick closer to me than a brother; a supernatural being that would take care of me no matter what I faced in life. You see, religious beliefs are not benign. They can and do have consequences; they can and do cause psychological and physical harm; they can and do make a mess of your life. At least, that was the case for me. Thanks to not paying Social Security for twenty years, the only retirement income I’ll have will be based on the secular work I did on and off while pastoring churches.
In seventeen days, I will file for early Social Security. Come June, I will draw my first check for about $600. I sent a message to Jesus, asking him to make up the difference, but he did not respond. “I know I am an atheist and all that now, but come on Jesus, I worked seven days a week for you, month in and month out for over two decades. Surely the laborer is worthy of his hire, as the Bible you wrote says!”
Jesus is too busy building imaginary mansions in Heaven (John 14:1-6) to be bothered with my needs. He owes me, as he owes billions of people before me, but he’s never paid on his promises. He promised, at least in my IFB-addled mind, to take care of me, and to be my BFF. Instead, as he is wont to do, Jesus left me to fend for myself. And that, my friend, is the point of this post. Each of us is responsible for our own lives. Deep down, at some level, I knew that, but I convinced myself that Jesus would come through for me in the end. The responsible thing for me to have done was to pay into Social Security. The responsible thing for me to have done was to demand the churches I worked for do a better job at providing for my future needs, and those of my family. Of course, I was Head Cheese® at most of the churches I pastored, so to some degree I am to blame for them not taking care of me. I allowed myself to become a cheap whore for Jesus. I allowed myself to be paid poverty wages with no promises for tomorrow.
During my time at Somerset Baptist Church, a man who had pastored a nearby church for decades died. He and his wife (and children), had lived in the church’s parsonage for thirty years. There was an unspoken promise — an assumption — made to the pastor’s wife: “we will take care of you.” Much to her horror, “we will take care of you” meant “you can live in the parsonage for two months and then you will have to move. Our nice, new, shiny young pastor will need the parsonage for him and his wife and children,” And just like that the aged preacher’s wife was out on the street, forced to move in with one of her children. I thought, at the time, “how awful,” but I never considered why she was in that position. Her husband was a church slave. He worked for paltry wages, supplementing his income with side hustles. Living in the church parsonage allowed him and his family to live frugally, yet keep working in God’s coal mine for slave wages. I am sure they had no thoughts of retirement. Jesus promised to care for them too. Imagine the dead preacher’s wife’s surprise when she found out that the people they had labored with and cared for had no interest in reciprocation. “Our pastor is dead. Time for a new one!” End of story.
Over the years, I have given numerous young preachers advice. I tell every one of them the same thing: be bivocational. Get a “real” job, one that allows you to adequately provide for your family’s needs. Don’t let paltry wages from the church keep you on the bread line. Expect the church to pay you a decent salary and provide the same benefits you would have in the secular world. If a church won’t pay you, then don’t pastor that church. (In retrospect, I should have been far pickier about the churches I pastored.) If a church can’t pay you as much as you need due to its size, then get a job and pastor the church part-time. And above all, DON’T let anyone convince you to opt out of Social Security. The government is NOT your enemy!
If I had it to do all over again, I would have been a bivocational pastor. I would have worked jobs that adequately provided income for my family. I would have put my wife and children first, not God. It’s not God who suffers when there’s no money. It’s not Jesus who suffers when the cupboards are bare and your children are wearing bread bags on their feet to keep them from getting wet in the winter. And don’t even get me started on the Holy Spirit. Why that dumb ass “led” me to do all sorts of stupid things, things that caused harm to my health and the financial well-being of my family. I should have listened for the beep-beep-beep of a Brink’s truck backing up to my house instead of just, with a wing and a prayer, “trusting” the triune God of Evangelicalism to take care of me.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 61, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 40 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.
Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section. If you are a first-time commenter, please read the commenting policy before wowing readers with your words. All first-time comments are moderated. If you would like to contact Bruce directly, please use the contact form to do so.
Donations are always appreciated. Donations on a monthly basis can be made through Patreon. One-time donations can be made through PayPal.
I don’t remember the exact date when I decided that I would not label myself as a Christian anymore. It’s probably been a couple of years — a gradual process, not a one-time event. Ironically, my deconversion was mainly due to a very in-depth, two-year study of the Bible and its history. Don’t get me wrong, I had studied the Bible for years previous to this. But it was always with the denominational glasses I had on at the time, and the theology books about the Bible that were written by authors within that same camp. Once I started studying with an open mind (at least as open as I could manage at the time) and read books by many different authors, wow! . . . I finally came to a place where I just couldn’t believe it anymore.
Recently, for some reason, I started thinking about my life when I was part of the Christian religion versus where I am now. Back then, I was happy where I was. I didn’t leave the church because of some hurt or disappointment, it was just what I thought I was supposed to do at the time. Once away from the influence of the church, I was able to study and ponder more freely, using my own mind to decide what I believed, and not what I was told to believe.
Now that I don’t hold to any of those beliefs, I’m also happy. It’s nothing that I can quantify, so it’s just my experience. I think I’m happier and better equipped to handle life now. I’ve learned a lot about the human brain and my own personality. Through that understanding and some meditation practice, I was able to come out of a four-year depression. I prayed and prayed for my depression to be lifted from me, but it wasn’t until I gained some understanding of how my brain works that I was able to take steps to head out of it.
I have some level of pain in my body most days. It’s from various things such as scoliosis, arthritis, years of running, karate, weight lifting, etc. I was very active in my youth and always just pushed through the pain. I eventually got to the point where I had to abandon most of my athletic activities. During this time, I prayed and prayed for healing. Nothing changed. I eventually found a tai chi instructor and started doing yoga. I was also able to find a good chiropractor. These helped me greatly! It could be argued that these were “answers” to my prayers. I guess that could be, right? But I did go looking for these tools hoping for some kind of relief. I am now relatively pain free compared to several years ago.
I am better off financially than I was when I was in church. I faithfully gave ten to twenty percent of my gross income to the church, trusting that God would take care of my needs. I didn’t go broke or anything like that. In fact, I had some pretty amazing things happen along the way to keep me going financially. But after I quit giving all that money to the church, I was able to come out of debt for the first time since graduating from college in 1991. I’m all for giving to charitable organizations. I still give to organizations that I believe in. But when I took some time and started saving and/or paying my debts with the money I gave to the church, I was able to pay off stuff and have the money to give without putting myself in a bad financial situation.
What about all those friends that I left behind? Good question. I enjoyed the fellowship that I had with lots of people in the church. But once I left, I realized that those were task-based relationships. And there is nothing wrong with that. We all have them, whether at work, our kids’ activities, or people we meet while doing our hobbies, etc. When I left the church, I did not hear from one church member. Again, they were task-based relationships, and I get that.
I have fewer “friends” now than I used to, but the friendships that I have now are deeper and more real and they let me be myself, and vice versa.
That’s something I really don’t miss! Putting on the “church face,” especially if you are on staff. “How are you today, pastor?” “Blessed and highly favored, brother. Ha ha ha haaaa.” I rarely felt the freedom to be real with people. And I rarely felt that they were real with me.
Remember all those bad things that we thought would happen to us if we didn’t do what we were told to do? Well, guess what? I don’t attend church anymore, I don’t read the Bible anymore, I don’t pray anymore (I no longer believe that there is a god to pray to, at least not the Christian version of god), I don’t tithe anymore . . . and nothing tragic has befallen me because I don’t do any of these things. Oh sure, I have to deal with the occasional cold or unexpected expense or the death of a loved one. But that’s just life! I had all those things going on when I was a Christian. Now that I’m away from religion, I feel as if I can see a little clearer. I have non-religious friends and religious ones, and they all deal with life, just as I do. Sometimes tragedy befalls us. No one is exempt. But, oddly enough, I feel like I handle the difficulties of life better now than I did in my religious days. I’ve learned to flow with life better — the good and the bad. Instead of wondering why a prayer wasn’t answered or why God would let something happen, I just realize that everyone has ups and downs. Sometimes people make good decisions and sometimes they make bad ones. I’ve learned a lot from secular Buddhism and Taoism over the last few years, and that helps me. I’m not saying I never get down or frustrated or angry. But I much prefer my current mindset and outlook on life to the way I used to see things.
I rarely feel bad about myself. Depending on the flavor of Christianity people come from, they are constantly told that they are sinners; worthless crap that Jesus had to die for so they don’t go to hell. Man, that just sounds weird to me now! I’m not saying that I’m always what people would call a saint. But I try not to be a dick, choosing instead to treat people the way I would like to be treated. Oh, by the way, that’s in the Bible. LOL! And sometimes, I do act like a dick, but I do my best to treat people decently. I remind myself that life can be really hard and people are just trying to get through their day. so I try to be kind. Not for any future heavenly reward, and not for any medals, or a better life next time around. Just because . . . It feels good to be kind with no hook or ulterior motive. (Like, if I’m nice to this person, maybe they will come to church with me. Gag!!!)
Anyway . . .
Overall, my life is better now than when I was a Christian. At least my outlook on life and the way I handle things seem to be better. I wouldn’t go back to the religious days.
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.
Victor asked: Do you miss being a preacher?
I preached my first sermon at age fifteen. While attending Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan, I preached on Sunday afternoons at the SHAR House in Detroit — a drug rehab center. I pastored Evangelicals churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan for twenty-five years. All told, I preached thousands of sermons to tens of thousands of people. If the ministry were just about preaching and teaching, I would say, without reservation, that I miss being a preacher. I thoroughly enjoyed preaching and teaching congregants the Word of God. I enjoyed the intellectual work that went into crafting a good sermon. I suspect, if I could choose a career in the secular world, that I would want to be a college professor.
Of course, the ministry entails a lot more than just preaching. I spent countless hours counseling people, performing weddings, conducting funerals, attending congregational/board meetings, and ministering to the social needs of congregants and the community at large. Over the years, I developed a real distaste for internecine warfare and conflict. Behind the scenes, I had to deal with squabbles and fights. I so wanted to scream, WILL EVERYONE PLEASE GROW UP! Evangelicals can be loving and kind one moment and nasty, vicious, and judgmental the next. I was so tired of conflict that I warned the last church I pastored — Victory Baptist Church in Clare, Michigan — that I had no heart for conflict. Evidently, they didn’t believe me, so imagine their surprise when a church business meeting turned into open warfare that I said, I quit! I told you that I had no stomach for church squabbles. And with that, I packed up my family and we moved back to Northwest Ohio.
Two years later, I tried one last time to pastor a church, candidating at several Southern Baptist churches in West Virginia. I found that I no longer had the emotional strength necessary to pastor a church. And with that, my career as a pastor came to an end — three years before I left Christianity. I have many fond memories from my days as a pastor. I also carry deep psychological scars too. The ministry is an admixture of peace, grace, and happiness and disunity, conflict, and loss. Thankfully, the former outweighed the latter for me. I know more than a few men who were savaged by their first congregation, never to pastor again.
I miss, of course, the love and respect I received from congregants. Who doesn’t want to be told week after week how wonderful you are? Pastors stand at the back of the church and shake hands with people as they leave. Church members and visitors alike praise them for their sermons and tell how much what they said helped them. I miss that feeling of connection with my fellow Christians. Of course, many of those same believers turned on me upon finding out that I was no longer a Christian. In some ways, I don’t blame them for their anger and hatred. I broke the bond we had with each other. In their minds, I was Pastor Bruce or Preacher; the man who helped their families, both spiritually and temporally. Now I am, in their eyes, a hater of God, living in denial of everything I once said was true.
If you know of a church looking for an unbeliever just to preach on Sundays, please let me know. I’m your man! I would love to whip up a few post-Jesus sermons.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 61, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 40 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.
Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section. If you are a first-time commenter, please read the commenting policy before wowing readers with your words. All first-time comments are moderated. If you would like to contact Bruce directly, please use the contact form to do so.
Donations are always appreciated. Donations on a monthly basis can be made through Patreon. One-time donations can be made through PayPal.
The Gerencser Family Headed for Church, Circa 1961-1962. I am the sharply dressed boy with a massive comb-over.
I was born in June 1957. My parents had me baptized in a mainline Protestant church (Lutheran or Episcopalian), but they moved to San Diego, California in the early 1960s, and I became a saved, baptized member of a Fundamentalist Baptist congregation — Scott Memorial Baptist Church, Tim LaHaye, pastor. From that time to my exit from Christianity in 2008, I was to some degree or another an Evangelical Christian. I say to some degree or another, because towards the end of my sojourn in Egypt I escaped Evangelicalism for a time. My wife and I visited numerous mainline churches, ranging from Greek Orthodox to United Methodist and from Roman Catholic to Lutheran. (Please read But Our Church is DIFFERENT!) The last church we attended before exiting out the back door never to return was a United Methodist church pastored by an Evangelical man who received his seminary education at Ohio Christian University. So while I have visited and attended for a short while non-Evangelical churches, my pedigree is solidly Evangelical.
The question, then, is this: did I choose to become an Evangelical? The short answer is no. My religion (and politics) was chosen for me by my parents. From the 1960s to 2008, I was very much a part of the Evangelical church, its politics, and its subculture. Early on, the churches I attended were on the far right of the Evangelical spectrum. In the mid-1990s I abandoned the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement and embraced generic Evangelicalism with a Calvinistic twist. Towards the end of time in the ministry, I found myself on the other end of the Evangelical spectrum. If I had continued on the leftward path, I have no doubt that I would have left Evangelicalism altogether. I suspect the only thing that stopped me from doing so was my lack of education. Leaving Evangelicalism to pastor liberal/progressive Christian churches was of interest to me, but having three years of Bible college education with no post-college seminary training barred me from walking that path. And just as well, I suppose, because the more I studied and learned the more I doubted the central claims of Christianity. It was only a matter of time before I came to the conclusion that Christianity no longer made sense. (Please read The Michael Mock Rule: It Just Doesn’t Make Sense.)
My parents were attend-church-three-times-a-week Evangelical Christians. From the age of five through the age of fifty, I attended Sunday worship services at the Evangelical churches our family called home. As a fifteen-year-old boy, I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, was baptized, and called into the ministry. For the next thirty-five years, I considered myself a God-called preacher. When I was a teenager, most of my friends were Evangelicals, and those who weren’t I tried to evangelize. Every girl I dated was an Evangelical. The college I attended was Evangelical. The girl I married was an Evangelical. Her parents and extended family were Evangelical. The six churches I pastored were Evangelical — IFB, Sovereign Grace Baptist, Christian Union, Non-denominational, Southern Baptist. All of my ministerial colleagues were Evangelical. In other words, I was, in every way, an Evangelical.
While I certainly made numerous choices as far as my theological beliefs and practices were concerned, I never strayed far, if at all, from the confines of the broad Evangelical tent. I may have thrown off the strictness of my IFB youth and early years in the ministry, but theologically I remained an Evangelical. Till the end, I believed the Bible was the Word of God. Till the end, I believed Jesus was the virgin-born, miracle-working, resurrected-from-the-dead son of the one true God. Till the end, I believed that Jesus was the WAY, the TRUTH, and the LIFE. Till the end, I worshiped the triune God of Christianity. Till the end, I tried my best to live according to the commands, precepts, and laws of the Bible. Till the end, I modeled Christian faith to my children. Till the end, I was not ashamed to call myself a Christian.
As I look back over my life from a psychological and sociological perspective, it is evident that my religion was chosen for me; first by my parents and later by the pastors, teachers, church members, and friends I looked up to. No one ever suggested that faith might exist outside of Evangelicalism. No one ever recommended that I read the religious writings of other religions or consider whether Christianity was true. My life, in every way, was one long presupposition. Outlandish, irrational beliefs were accepted as facts because, well, everyone I knew believed these things. When your family, friends, pastors, and teachers all have the same beliefs (in a broad sense), it is unlikely that you are going to believe differently. At least, that was the case for me. As a true-blue believer, I was all-in. Even after my parents divorced and my entire family stopped attending church, I held on to the family God. In fact, I became more devoted to Jesus and his church. Is it any surprise that I was saved and called into the ministry the same year my parents divorced (and remarried)? I think not. In the church, I found a familial connection. In the church, I found purpose, meaning, and direction. No matter how much turmoil there was in my life, the church was always there for me. Well — until I said I was an atheist, anyway. THAT was a bridge too far, even for more “enlightened” Evangelicals.
Evangelicalism is bubble, the bubble where I found love and safety for many years. The beliefs and practices that now seem irrational, delusional, and psychologically harmful, made perfect sense to me as long as I remained in the bubble. When you grow up in and spend most of your life in a monoculture, it is hard to imagine life outside of the bubble. Danger, damnation, and hell await those who stray from the fold, I was told countless times, and I warned others of the same when I was a pastor. It was only when I dared to consider that the Bible might not be an inspired, inerrant, infallible text that I had thoughts of life outside of the bubble. I could be wrong, I thought. What if Christianity is not what I believed it to be all these years? What if all paths lead to God? What if no paths lead to God because there is no God? Questions pushed opened the door, and once it was open, I was free to wander and roam; free to read whatever I wanted; free to have non-Christian friends; free to love the world and the things of the world; free to finally, for myself, choose whether I wanted to be an Evangelical or whether I wanted to be a Christian. And the choice I made, of course, was NO, I don’t want to be an Evangelical; I don’t want to be a Christian. But even here I have to admit that, to some degree, this choice was forced upon me. I could have ignored the voices in my head and remained a Christian, but I chose, instead, to listen to questions and challenges percolating in my mind as I, for the first time, looked at Christianity with a skeptical, critical eye. And once I dared to accept the full weight of the implications of what I learned, my house of faith came tumbling down.
I have spent the last decade building a new house, one that sits on a foundation of reason, freethought, and the humanistic ideal. I didn’t choose to become an Evangelical. But I have now chosen to become a humanist. I feel liberated from the bondage of past beliefs, and while humanism is not the end-all Christianity professes to be, it does provide me a solid moral and ethical foundation by which to live my life. And here’s the good news, I am free to change and adapt as my thinking evolves, and no one is going to threaten me with humanist hell if I do. I can’t begin to express how wonderful it is to to ponder and think about what we call the big issues of life without fearing that I have offended the God or one of his earthly messengers. Simply put, I am free to be me.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 61, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 40 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.
Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section. If you are a first-time commenter, please read the commenting policy before wowing readers with your words. All first-time comments are moderated. If you would like to contact Bruce directly, please use the contact form to do so.
Donations are always appreciated. Donations on a monthly basis can be made through Patreon. One-time donations can be made through PayPal.
I recently received the following email from an Evangelical man named Jeff.
I read the seven articles associated with “My Journey” and “Dear Evangelical” on your web site.
Thank you for your honesty and integrity regarding your spiritual walk.
I’ve been a believer in Christ since I was a young child, and God has richly blessed me with a close relationship to him.
Therefore reading your articles produces a deep sadness in me because I can see that you’re missing out on the most important relationship that any human being can have.
One of the first things that popped into my mind while reading your articles was something I’ve believed a long time: “Anything that can be done without Jesus Christ is not Christianity.” You obviously have a significant intellect and great desire to learn and teach. Reading widely and accumulating knowledge is a worthy pursuit, as are many other pursuits. Many worthy endeavors, including all types of theological efforts, can be pursued without a genuine relationship with Jesus Christ. Learning about someone does not mean that you have a love relationship with him/her.
Another quick comment relates to basic statistics. While I’m more than impressed at all the churches you’ve visited, please remember “sample size”. When performing statistical calculations it’s always important to consider sample size, or the number of statistical samples you have with respect to the entire population. If there are about 350,000 churches in the USA and you visited 100 of them, then your sample size is 100/350,000, which is less than 0.03% — an extremely small sample size. Thus when you claim something to the effect that all churches are the same, your sample size is so small that you have no credible basis for such a statement. I personally know some churches where the emphasis is the person of Jesus Christ above all else.
In none of the articles I read did I see any indication of the Holy Spirit’s work in your life. Awareness of your sin and belief in the forgiveness of your sin by Christ’s atoning sacrifice were not mentioned.
Penultimately, although I try to not tell people that they “should” do something, because you claim to be a voracious reader I have a few suggestions, if you have any appetite for spiritual wholeness:
• Books by pastors Ray C. Stedman, Dave Roper, John Piper, and Ray Ortlund
• Articles and books by apologists William Lane Craig, John Lennox, and C.S. Lewis
• Web site reasons.org (the authors of which present credible challenges to some of your claims)
• Short videos by Frank Turek
Lastly, one inescapable fact for me is that because the material universe is so amazingly complex there is no logical explanation for all of it to have come about by mere accident (randomness and mutation). I can’t imagine how so many clever/complex things could come about accidentally.
Respectfully,
Jeff
Where do I begin? It’s clear that Jeff doubts whether I was a True Christian®. Over the past decade, I have received countless email and blog comments that have asserted the same: that I was never a Christian; that I was deceived; that I was a wolf among sheep. Making these baseless assertions allow my critics to dismiss my story out of hand. It allows them to toss me aside into the reject bin that’s filled with countless other people who went to church but never knew the saving grace of Jesus Christ.
The problem with this argument, of course, is it that is absurd; little more than a wild conspiracy theory. I spent fifty years in the Christian church. Twenty-five of those years were spent pastoring Evangelical churches in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. During this time, I came into intimate contact with Evangelical congregants and ministerial colleagues. I also was close to a number of Evangelical evangelists, missionaries, and college professors. My life was surrounded by professing Christians. Not only that, but I married into a family of Evangelical preachers. My wife’s father was a pastor, as was her uncle. Polly had cousins who were pastors, evangelists, and missionaries. Yet, according to some Christian zealots, I had all of these people fooled. Not one of them — all of whom were indwelt by the Holy Spirit — discerned that I wasn’t a Christian. Not one. My critics will search high and low and not find one person willing to say, I doubted Bruce Gerencser was a Christian. In fact, what they will find is people willing to testify of my commitment to Jesus and my resolve to follow his teachings. I was in every way a lover of Jesus. I had an intimate, loving, and fulfilling relationship with Him, and was, myself, indwelt with the Holy Spirit.
Bruce, you are now an atheist. You don’t believe the Christian God exists, so why does it matter to you that people accept your confession of faith as true? What I want from people is for them to accept my story at face value. When I write about the past, I focus on what I believed at that time. Yes, I was worshiping a myth, but in my mind, I believed I was worshiping the one true God. In my mind, I believed that Jesus had saved me from my sins and called me to be a preacher of the gospel. I believed that the Bible was a supernatural text inspired by a supernatural God. I believed God, in the person of the Holy Spirit, lived inside of me. All of these beliefs were nonsensical, yet, at the time, I believed them with all my heart. Thus, I find it offensive when some Evangelicals dismiss my testimony of faith with a wave of the hand, saying that I never was a Christian. All I am asking is that people accept my story as it is and not try to read their personal judgments, opinions, and theology into my story. When the Jeffs of the world tell me they are Christians, I accept that what they are telling me is true. That’s how human interactions work. We respectfully allow others to tell their own stories. After all, who knows his story better than the person telling it, right?
I found Jeff’s email to be polite, yet littered with passive-aggressive attempts to cast doubt on my past Christian faith. Jeff focuses on my astute study habits and book reading. Worthy pursuits, says Jeff, but one can learn many things about Jesus, yet not have a love relationship with him. Hint, hint, that’s you Bruce. I was a student, an intellectual, but I never truly loved Jesus, Jeff suggests. How does he determine this is so? What criteria does he use to determine that I never truly loved Jesus? Did I say the wrong words when I asked Jesus to save me? Did I belong to the wrong sect? What was it in my writing that led Jeff to conclude Jesus and I never had an intimate relationship? Or is the real issue that my story makes Jeff uncomfortable; that the implications of my loss of faith casts doubts on some of his beliefs?
Most Christians, except those of Pelagian persuasion, believe that true faith is evidenced by good works. James makes this clear when he says:
What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only. Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way? For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also. (James 2:14-26)
I am more than happy to compare good works with Jeff or any other Christian. Not only did I have a credible profession of faith and orthodox beliefs, I also showed I was a follower of Christ through my works. Again, anyone and everyone who knew me as a Christian would testify that I was a true-blue child of God. This is why so many people find my loss of faith so disconcerting. If Bruce could lose his faith, they think, why anybody can.
Jeff goes on to cast more doubt on my past faith by saying, “In none of the articles I read did I see any indication of the Holy Spirit’s work in your life. Awareness of your sin and belief in the forgiveness of your sin by Christ’s atoning sacrifice were not mentioned.” Jeff read all of seven articles out of 2,722 posts — little more than a rounding error. Perhaps Jeff should invest time in truly getting to know the subject of his criticism. What Jeff has done so far is akin to someone reading the first seven chapters of Matthew and then saying they have read the Bible. Without fail, the sharpest critics of my life are those who can’t be bothered to read more than the first chapter or two of my autobiography.
For the sake of giving Jeff a thorough answer, let me address what he believes are omissions in my story. I believed that I was a broken, wretched sinner who deserved eternal punishment in the Lake of Fire. I believed that my sins separated me from God and that only through the atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross could I be forgiven from my sins and be reconciled to God. At the age of fifteen, I came under conviction and the Holy Spirit revealed to me my sinfulness and need of salvation. I repented of my sins and asked Jesus to save me. From that moment in 1972 until November of 2008 — thirty-five years — I wholeheartedly believed that Jesus was my Lord, Savior, and King. While my theology changed over the years, I never lost sight of the centrality of Jesus Christ in my life. He was THE way, THE truth, and THE life. As far as the work of the Holy Spirit in my life, my good works speak for themselves. My devotion to preaching and teaching the Bible and evangelizing the lost was known far and near. I “felt” the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life. I “felt” the Holy Spirit leading and directing me throughout my life. It matters not that I now believe that these things were the machinations of my mind, and not the work of a mythical, invisible Spirit. At the time, I believed and that’s what matters when trying to determine the truthfulness of my story.
Finally, I want to address Jeff suggesting I read books by this or that author, check out this or that website, or watch apologetical videos. Here’s what I said to him in my brief response to his email:
Up until I deconverted, I read every book John Piper wrote. I’m familiar with his writings and his teachings on Christian hedonism. I read a lot of books by authors who focused on inward spiritual development. My library had over one thousand books. I read authors from the 16th century to the current era. I hope you are not seriously suggesting that if I read this or that book by one or another author that I would miraculously see the light. Give me credit for doing my homework before leaving Christianity. While there were psychological components to my deconversion, the ultimate reasons were of an intellectual nature. I came to the conclusion that the Bible was not what Christians claim it is. I also came to see that Christianity just doesn’t make sense. See :
Many ex-Christians, including myself, spent agonizing weeks, months, and years trying to hang on to their faith. The more we read and studied, the more doubts and questions we had. None of us wanted to leave Christianity. Speaking for myself, why would I ever want to leave all that I had ever known? Why would I want to leave the foundation upon which my life, marriage, and family was built? Why would I want to leave the social connections I had built over five decades? Why would I want to lose all of my friends, men and women I had known for much of my adult life? Why would I want to leave a job that I personally found meaningful and fulfilling?
One need only read my letters: Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners and Dear Friend, to literally feel the angst and raw emotion in my decision to abandon all I knew and held dear. I suspect that many of the readers of this blog have similar testimonies.
Come November, it will be ten years since I walked out the back door of the Ney United Methodist Church, never to return. Since then, scores of Evangelical apologists have stopped by to “educate” me about the faults in my testimony of faith. I have, by now, heard it all. There are no new arguments for Christianity forthcoming. All Christian authors do is repackage the same old, tired, worn out arguments in books with new titles. If new evidence for Christianity is someday found, I will honestly and openly look at it and determine its worthiness. Until then, I am confident that I have thoroughly investigated the claims of Christianity. I am confident that my rejection of Christianity is intellectually sound.
After I responded to Jeff’s email, he sent me the following:
Given that engaging in internet dialogue is limiting, I thought a useful response would be for me to briefly document my personal situation if I were to “deconvert”.
If I Were to Deconvert from Christianity …
I would become lonely because I would lose my closest, constant companion.
Death would become a great unknown because the one who had conquered death would be dead.
I would become unloved because the one who had known me most deeply me would be absent.
I would lose the sweet communion with my Master.
I would tumble into despair because my purpose for my life would be obliterated.
I would become overburdened with guilt because my sins and failures would persist
My hope for a better future would dissipate because no one would be preparing a better place for me.
I would become fearful because I would lose my defender who had shielded me from attacks.
I would become stoical because my emotions would be stunted.
Beauty would become meaningless because I would lose the one who is beauty’s very essence.
Making decisions would be fraught with fear because I would lose my personal guide.
Temptations would become irresistible because the one holding me accountable would be gone.
I would lose my hope of receiving deep, honest, lasting joy because my joy-giver would be absent.
I would become mean because the one who had comforted my deepest hurts would be gone.
Trials would become unbearable because my trial-bearer would be gone.
If I lost my relatives and friends, I would be important to no one.
If I Were to Deconvert from Belief in God …
My life would be devoid of meaning and significance because my life would be little more than the result of purposeless, random accidents (otherwise known as biological mutations).
My standard for morality would vanish; morality would be determined by whoever had power over me.
My understanding of the beginning of life would disappear.
My understanding of the beginning of space and time would disappear.
My desire to perform altruistic acts would be quenched.
My mind would likely burst from a most unsettling conundrum: lacking a transcendent creator, the only other explanation for my existence would be neo-Darwinian evolution, which is illogical and untenable, leaving the question of my identity painfully unanswered.
I would lose my part in the greatest story ever told.
I would lose my ability to intervene through prayer on others’ behalf to God.
My prospect for the end of the world would become fearful because it would depend on mankind’s actions instead of the will of the one who created it.
My worldview would become nonsensical because the multitude of fine-tuning aspects of the universe would become inexplicable, impossible coincidences instead of evidences of a loving creator.
With so much to lose, how could I ever “deconvert”?
All I can say to what Jeff has written is *sigh.* Perhaps others will want to address Jeff’s false (and offensive) caricature of unbelievers. If I believed these things to be true, I too would live in hopelessness and despair. However, all that Jeff has done is show us how a Christian Fundamentalist views life and the universe. Presuppositions abound. Remove them, and everything looks gloriously and wonderfully different. There is life post-Jesus, of that I am sure. I have written countless posts about purpose and meaning, and how atheists/agnostics/humanists/unbelievers can and do find meaning and purpose in the present precisely because they have no need of religion. Jeff’s not interested in learning about these things because in Jesus he has all that he needs. Jeff married the first girl he ever dated, and now he judges all other marriages by his. He lacks the experience necessary to make such judgments of others. For him to suggest that his peculiar interpretation of an ancient religion and its text is the prescription for happiness, love, and fulfillment is beyond arrogant. Such is the nature of Evangelical Christianity. Evangelicalism is all that Jeff has ever known. Until he experiences life outside of the box, there’s not much hope for him. A wild, wonderful world awaits Jeff if he dares to scale the walls of his intellectual and psychological jail and escapes. He’s not ready to do so today, but there’s hope. You see, I once was a Jeff. And if I can find new life in reason and humanistic principles, I know Jeff can. With God — err, I mean intellectual inquiry — ANYTHING is possible!
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 61, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 40 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
Bruce is a local photography business owner, operating Defiance County Photo out of his home. If you live in Northwest Ohio and would like to hire Bruce, please email him.
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Rarely does a day go by that an Evangelical zealot doesn’t either send me an email or leave a comment on one or more posts. Yesterday, Steve Ransom (a fake name, I believe) started leaving comments on a post about disgraced Evangelical pastor Bill Hybels. Ransom, a Brit, has been leaving comments and sending me emails for the better part of three years. I have banned him several times, but, like a bad penny, he keeps coming back. Here’s what he had to say this time (all spelling and grammar in the original):
Yeah yeah, I can just picture Bruce – saliva in his beard, gleefully chasing down the church pedos and sex gangsters, who exist everywhere in society, as if any of this adds any weight to his fatuous railings against our God. Bill Hybels and Bruce Gerenscer alike will stand before God to give account for their godlessness and BG particularly will be found wanting
I findl it interesting you are going after your Creator and using shock jorror sexual abuse in the church as your ‘weapon of mass distraction.’ Ooooh! What a shocking scoop. Your cultic followers will of course generously applaud your word salad on this subject. They always do. And you can all clap each other on the back and comfort one another that hete’s another ‘hateful christian’ who didn’t show Bwucie any luuuurve. What you forget you snake is that although there are so many people deserving grace and investment, you however are one of the vipers Jesus cursed, stating your father is the father of lies. But eulogise on Bruce, you WILL meet your Maker
nothing like a few home truths to brng dwn the drawbridge on freedom of speech. youre a fake and a fraud and a sad little man all rolled into one, ‘i’ll not approve any more comments from you.’ hahahaha oh dear what will your sycophant disciples think of that, hahahaha
haha about time your inactive site saw a flurry of activity. fancy that bruce, denying me a voice ( not that i care, i really don’t) but posting up some exchanges from 2015, i repeat, youre a sad old man with a legacy of depressive memories, ruing certain decisions youve made in your life and hiding away in the woods with only your internet for a friend, and posting only those godless posts that stroke you in all the right places, have another warm night bruce
You can read Ransom’s comments in context and my responses here.
Ransom also sent me two emails:
Ouch im cut to the quick bruce, your pathetic approach is soo transparent
Bye
please bruce, show the whole thread why dont you, let it be an advert for you. how you and your cohorts are so right about everything, youre a sad little man bruce
I have no idea what “thread” he is talking about. I have received two emails from Ransom, that’s it.
I am clueless regarding what Ransom hopes to achieve by leaving nasty comments about me and the readers of this blog. I should just cut him off for good, but I find that his comments advance a greater good; that of showing how some Evangelicals view people different from themselves. Ransom is also a reminder of the fact that Britain has its own virulent brand of Evangelicalism. I suggested to Ransom that he should get together fellow Evangelical zealot Susan-Anne White. They are, indeed, two peas in a pod; kindred spirits who “love” Jesus and despise anyone who doesn’t believe as they do — especially atheists, agnostics, and liberal Christians. Both of them also have an out-sized preoccupation and obsession with male anal sex.
If you are not familiar with Ms. White, check out the following posts:
Just started to read some stuff on your site. It’s sad, really, to see how you’ve abandoned the way of faith, especially when your reasons are so hackneyed. I don’t wish to debate with you since you seem to have a closed mind. However, I thought I’d let you know that to well-educated Christians who have been exposed to the acid of critical scholarship and yet have continued in the faith, your arguments seem quite childish. Suffice it to say that your website breaks no new ground and that all of your points have adequate answers in evangelical scholarship. You just don’t seem to want to hear them anymore because you have made a decision to reject Jesus. Beyond the intellectual excuses, I wonder what the real reasons are.
I responded:
*sigh* You read four posts before leaving this comment.
Believe what you will. I know the intellectual reasons why I left Christianity.
No amount of Evangelical turd polishing will change my mind. Evangelicals haven’t had an original thought/argument in decades. What argument could you possibly give that I haven’t heard before?
You are free to make whatever judgments you wish about my past and present life. That is the nature of blogging, I have to deal with people such as yourself. I limit exposure to such inane bullshit by limiting the number of comments zealots can leave . Generally, Evangelicals get one opportunity to share what God has laid on their heart. You had your opportunity, so I hope, bless your heart, you said everything you needed to say.
As for the “real” reasons for my deconversion, I wanted to be porn star, and live a debauched life. I wanted to live in sin. I’m sure that’s want you want to hear. Makes it easier to dismiss me that way.
Any Hoo, thanks for commenting and using your one opportunity to put in a good word for Jesus. I’m sure you’ve made him proud.
Schouten later sent me the following email:
Only four posts? It seemed like forty.
I’ve read this sort of stuff from lots of people over the years.
Seems like all newly-professing atheists are driven to seek to de-convert others.
All so predictable and tiresome.
All in the name of scholarship but without scholarly rigor or depth.
I guess you have to fill your days somehow now that you no longer have any transcendent purpose for your life.
Anyway, it’s way past your bedtime.
Schouten, who read all of four posts on this site, believes that the reasons I left Christianity lack academic and scholarly rigor. In other words, he has a theological boner and he knows that my flaccid reasons for rejecting the Christian narrative and the authority of the Protestant Christian Bible will never stand up to the critique of such an educated Evangelical porn star such as himself. You see, Schouten is a “smart” Evangelical, and if I would just be “smart” like he is, my rejection of Christianity would melt away like butter on a warm summer day and Jesus would once again reign supreme in my life.
Schouten says that my writing breaks no new ground; that all he sees is predictable and tiresome posts. Since December 2014, I have written 2, 713 posts. Schouten has read .00145 percent of my writing, yet he’s skimmed enough to come to the conclusions mentioned above. Perhaps the good pastor should consider Proverbs 18:13: Spouting off before listening to the facts is both shameful and foolish. (NLT)
He’s right about one thing: my critique of Christianity breaks no new ground. How could it since, to quote Solomon, there is nothing new under the sun. Evangelical pastors such as Schouten haven’t had an original thought nor broken new ground themselves. Same old skipping record droning on, and on, and on. They continue to preach Jesus, the same yesterday, today, and forever, forgetting the word SAME. As factory workers in this part of the country say, same shit, new day. Oh, these educated giants of the faith read lots of books, but rarely do they venture beyond the safe confines of the Evangelical box. These books, then, are echo chambers that reinforce their Evangelical presuppositions and beliefs. I had, at one time, over a thousand books in my library, most of them of a Calvinistic persuasion. I suspect Schouten, a Reformed Christian, and I have read many of the same theological tomes. Yet, he’s the smart one, and I am the uneducated one. Why? I refuse to believe his cult’s myth about a virgin-born deity who walked on water, raised the dead, walked through walls, and healed blindness with spit mixed with dirt. I refuse to believe that this deity is one God, yet three; that the third part of the three-n-one lives inside True Christians®; that the first part of the three-n-one killed the second part on a Roman cross and magically the dead God resurrected three days later. Even more fantastical, when Jesus came back to life, graves opened up and zombies roamed the streets. And then Jesus said see ya later and ascended into the clouds, never to be seen again. And he’s the smart one? Child, please!
Schouten fails to understand that this blog is not meant to be a defense of atheism nor is it a white-tower critique of Christianity. Evidently, Schouten didn’t read the name of this blog: The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser: One Man’s Journey From Eternity to Here. Fundamentally, this blog is me telling my story: an accounting of the fifty years I spent in the Christian church, the twenty-five years I spent as an Evangelical pastor, and my subsequent loss of faith. I am just one man with a story to tell. That thousands of people read my blog and find my writing helpful suggests that my story resonates with people. I could, if I wanted to, start up an academic blog, one where Evangelicals such as Schouten could come and ply their apologetical skills. There are plenty of such blogs for the Schoutens of the world to unzip their educational zipper and expose their prowess for all to see. I have no interest in having such a blog. I have a good understanding of who my target audience is, and these are the people I write for. I give Evangelical zealots just enough rope to hang themselves, providing countless examples of reasons why many of the readers of this blog left Christianity, In Schouten’s case, his words smack of elitism; a common trait among Evangelical pastors. I have corresponded with numerous people who were psychologically harmed by preachers who looked down on them or treated them as if they were stupid. They likely see in Schouten’s arrogance and condescension a reminder of one of the reasons they deconverted. So, to Pastor Schouten I say this: keep preaching the gospel, bro. Thousands of people will read your comment and email. You indeed provide a glowing reminder of why many of us are so glad to be free of Christianity (especially your Fundamentalist version, anyway).
I love how Schouten dismisses my life with a wave of his pontifical hand: I guess you have to fill your days somehow now that you no longer have any transcendent purpose for your life. In other words, I have a meaningless, purposeless, empty life without Jesus, so I spend my days turning out atheist propaganda. Little does Schouten know (or care) that atheists can and do have lives of meaning and purpose; that, as humanists, we don’t need God, Christianity, Jesus, the church, or the antiquated, contradictory words of the Bible to make our lives worthwhile.
I am sixty-one years old. I have been married to a beautiful dark-haired woman for forty years. I have six children who are gainfully employed and I have twelve awesome grandchildren. A dog and a cat too. I own a photography business. And yes, I write for this blog. You see, my life is filled with wonder, purpose, and meaning, and as long as I have the strength to do so, I plan on living life to its fullest. I don’t have a promise of a divine pay-off; a reserved room in the God’s Golden Shower Trump Tower®. All I have is the here and now, the present. This is why I give the following advice on the 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. Some day, sooner than you think, it will be over. Don’t let your dying days be ones of regret over what might have been.
And with that I bid these residents of the peanut gallery adieu.
