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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Pride Month is the Worship of Sex Says Evangelical Robby Lashua

Bruce Gerencser 11 Comments
robby-lashua

Scripture says that pride comes before a fall (Prov. 16:18). In America, pride comes before July—for an entire month. I don’t know how your June was, but mine was permeated with a steady stream of multi-colored imagery. It’s the time of year when companies, sports teams, and politicians change their branding to incorporate the new religious icon of our time, the rainbow.

I know this month-long celebration of sin can be discouraging for you. It discourages me. It’s sad to watch our culture glorify the rejection of God’s design for human sexuality and for human flourishing. On top of that, it’s so in your face. Even going to the grocery store requires maneuvering a minefield of rainbow propaganda.

Staying discouraged won’t help us. What we need instead is clear thinking from a biblical perspective to help us move away from discouragement and toward compassion. Here are three observations that might help.

First, Pride Month confirms Romans 1. Paul gives us a compact explanation of what happens when societies reject God. They become futile in their thinking, they become foolish in their hearts, and they exchange worship of God for worship of idols. Then God gives them over to homosexual sin (Rom. 1:21–27). Sound familiar?

Humans are worshipers. It’s a trait inherent in all of us. We cannot help but worship. But who or what will we worship? According to Romans 1, there are only two options: the Creator or the creation. When people reject the Creator, then something in his creation fills the void.

Sex is one of the most popular idols of all time. Our culture is obsessed with it. Pride Month is not merely the worship of sex, though. June has become a month-long celebration of sexual identities completely contrary to God’s design. All hail the idol of LGBTQIA2S+. Futile, foolish, idol worship—Romans 1 proven true again.

Second, Pride Month is nothing new. Pagans have confiscated calendar months before.

Roman Emperor Julius Caesar instituted huge reforms to the calendar. Proud of his effort, he decided to rename his birth month after himself, changing the name from Quintilis to Julius. We call it July.

Not to be outdone, Caesar Augustus renamed a month after himself, too. Sextilis has ever since been called August. Just when you thought you were done with month-long celebrations of pagan idols, you now have two more months to go.

My point is that the identification of pagan rulers, pagan causes, and pagan idols with calendar months is nothing new. Pride Month is exactly what prideful human beings do when they deny their Creator. They mark the passage of time with the thing their hearts worship—usually themselves.

Third, Pride Month can’t compete with Jesus. Jesus is not merely celebrated once a year on Christmas or even twice a year if we include Easter. Jesus is celebrated every Sunday—the Lord’s Day—as Christians worldwide worship Christ and commemorate his resurrection. But there’s more.

The Gregorian calendar, which most of the world accepts, has Jesus at the very center of time. When I was a kid, we called it BC (before Christ) and AD (anno Domini, Latin for “in the year of our Lord”). Even with the current, religiously neutral BCE (before common era) and CE (common era), the world’s calendar is still centered on Jesus’ life.

Jesus himself tells us that all time is about him: “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22:13). Jesus is responsible for the beginning of history, and his second coming will be the conclusion of history. As much as people rage against him, Jesus is Lord over all the days and all the ages of mankind.

With these points in mind, we should be less discouraged with the dates of pagan worship and more concerned with the impending judgment our calendar days are leading to.

There is a day coming when Christ will dominate not only the calendar, but also the culture: “So that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Phil. 2:10–11). Not Caesar, not sex, and not identity—Jesus is Lord.

There is a day coming when people will no longer suppress the truth, but instead they’ll be overwhelmed by the truth. This should move us to compassion for those who worship created things instead of the Creator.

Let’s spend the time we have left directing people to the Creator of time. We have the message of reconciliation that Pride Month worshipers need to humbly believe before time runs out.

— Robby Lashua, Apologist at Stand to Reason, Don’t Be Discouraged by Pride Month, June 29, 2022

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Sounds of Fundamentalism: Joe Biden and His Fellow Atheists Are Trying to Take Over the United States Says Rep. Glenn Grothman

Bruce Gerencser 2 Comments

The Sounds of Fundamentalism is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section.  Let’s have some fun!

Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video clip of Rep. Glenn Grothman claiming President Biden and his fellow atheists are trying to take over the United States.

Video Link

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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My Journey From Homophobia to a Supporter of LGBTQ People

Bruce Gerencser 25 Comments
bruce gerencser pride two

Recently, a friend of mine — also a former Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preacher — asked me about my journey from homophobia to a supporter of LGBTQ people:

How long did it take you to come around to your current views of acceptance of homosexual folks, not simply tolerating or being kind to them? Also, if there was one, what was the “catalyst” that led you to become as accepting and even accommodating as you now are?

I ask because while I no longer consider it damming or “evil” I simply have a hard time wrapping my head around it and / or not being grossed out by those I come in contact with who I learn are of that lifestyle.

My friend asks several questions I hopefully (and adequately) can answer. I will attempt to do so, as I often do, by telling my story.

I was born in 1957. As was common for men of generation, I was homophobic. I didn’t meet my first gay person until I was thirty-eight years old. Oh, I “knew” gay men in the sense that, based on their mannerisms, I considered them to be a fag, queer, light in their loafers. Polly’s single uncle was a gay man, as was one of my cousins. I knew these men from distance. As far as lesbians are concerned, I didn’t meet a lesbian until I was in my forties.

In ninth grade, we were taught how to square dance in gym class. My pastor threw a fit over me dancing, and this led to me sitting in the bleachers while my fellow classmates danced. Sitting with me were two boys who refused to shower at the end of class. It was assumed by me and my fellow students that these boys were “faggots.” I have no idea whether they were actually gay. Just being different was enough to get one labeled with the “faggot” label.

In the mid-seventies, I casually knew a man my age who was gay. It was believed that he was preyed upon by a much older gay man who ran one of the local funeral homes. This young man, in the 1980s, died of AIDS.

I never heard much preaching about homosexuality as a teen. Oh, I heard the typical talking points about “queers” or “sodomites” having tattoos or wearing earrings in their left ears — both stereotypes of which were patently untrue.

By the time I left Bible college in 1979 and started pastoring IFB churches, I was a full-blown homophobe, a man who reveled in his heterosexuality and excoriated LGBTQ people. On several occasions, gay people visited one of the churches I pastored. I made sure they felt unwelcome. I viewed them, at the time, as child predators — another untrue stereotype.

This brings me to 1995.

In March of 1994, I left a church I had pastored for almost twelve years and moved to San Antonio, Texas to co-pastor Community Baptist Church. This move proved to be a disaster, and in the fall that same year, we packed up our belongings and moved to Frazeysburg, Ohio. With the help of Polly’s parents, we bought a newish manufactured home — a $25,000 upgrade from our previous mobile home.

We lived in Frazeysburg for six months. Needing immediate employment, I turned to restaurant management. I was hired by Charley’s Steakery (now called Charleys Philly Steaks) to be the general manager of their franchise at the Colony Square Mall in Zanesville. I continued to work for this restaurant until March 1995, when I assumed the pastorate of Olive Branch Christian Union Church in Fayette.

bruce gerencser pride

The restaurant I managed had a drink refill policy for mall employees. If employees stopped at the restaurant with their cups, we refilled them free of charge. Some employees would stop every day they worked to get their large plastic cups refilled. One such employee was a man who worked at a nearby store.

This man was in his twenties. The first time I personally refilled his cup for him, my infallible, never-wrong (I am joking) gaydar went off. I thought, “OMG, this guy is gay. What if he has AIDS?” Quite frankly, I am surprised he didn’t see the disgust on my face. Maybe he did, but ignored it. I dutifully put ice in his cup, filled it with pop, and handed it back to him. After he walked away from the service counter, I would quickly run to the kitchen and thoroughly wash my hands, fearing that I might catch AIDS.

Over time, this man and I struck up casual conversations. He was quite friendly, and truth be told, I liked talking to him. As I got to know him better, I found that I no longer was disgusted or worried about getting AIDS. I even stopped washing my hands after serving him. What changed?

My theology didn’t change. And neither did my irrational fear of gay people. Coming to where I am today, a supporter of LGBTQ rights with numerous gay and transgender friends, took years. What needed washing was my proverbial heart, not my hands.

My first step, then, in moving away from homophobia was actually getting to know an LGBTQ person. The more gay people I met, the less I could continue to hate them. I also learned that at least five children raised under my preaching were gay. These poor children had to listen to me rail against LGBTQ people. There was nothing I could do about the past. I apologized to them, and, thankfully, they completely forgave me. Does this mean I was finally free of homophobia? Nope.

The past decade has brought numerous LGBTQ people into my life, forcing me to confront what my friend called “wrapping his head around it [gay lifestyle] and/or not being grossed out by those he comes in contact with who are LGBTQ.” First, I had to learn that being gay was not a “lifestyle,” any more than being heterosexual is a “lifestyle.” We are who we are. A decade of intense counseling has taught me a lot about “self.” Good, bad, and downright ugly. Second, I came to believe that ALL people, regardless of their sexual orientation, were deserving of justice and equal protection under the law. Thus, when it came to same-sex marriage, I found that there was no rational, ethical reason to prohibit gay people from marrying. Not one. I also realized that I had to make my pro-same-sex marriage view public. Public sins require public penance. I did so by writing letters to the editor, publishing blog posts, and putting LGBTQ-friendly signs in my front yard — a heavily trafficked state highway.

Over time, I became more and more open about my unreserved support of LGBTQ people. I even offered to perform same-sex marriages. Over the weekend, Polly and I attended Defiance’s Pride Walk, proudly walking with LGBTQ family, friends, and acquaintances.

Video Link

What a day! Does this, however, mean that I am finally free of homophobia? While I am not far from the kingdom, I know that buried deep in the recesses of my mind rests bigotry of all sorts. As is common for all of us, we struggle to understand people “different” from us. I am an alpha male, 100% heterosexual, a Type A workaholic and sports addict. I am a typical man for my generation. However, I know I don’t want to be a “typical” sixty-five-year-old man. People like me ARE the problem. Quite frankly, we need to die off, and soon.

The struggle that remains for me is truly, without reservation, accepting and embracing people who are different from me. I must work on this every day, pushing my bigotry farther back into the recesses of my mind. I will never “arrive.” All I know to do is to be better today than yesterday.

I would encourage my friend to genuinely befriend LGBTQ people — without reservation. When homophobia rears its ugly head, ask yourself, how would you feel if gay people treated you this way? Confess your “sin,” and do better. Practice what you preach. Participate in groups and events that challenge your bigotry. This is hard work, and you will fail many times. If, however, you believe in justice and equality for all, then you must try again.

I’ve been blogging for fifteen years. I have met countless LGBTQ people. Some of them I consider friends. Listening to their stories — the harm caused to them by homophobic preachers (seeing myself squarely in the mirror), churches, and families — helped me not only confront my own bigotry but also develop genuinely empathy for LGBTQ people. Understanding someone’s journey will go a long way in combating homophobia

Here’s what I am saying to my friend: becoming a tolerant, accepting man requires a lot of pain and struggle. We must not rest until we have rooted every last bit of bigotry out of our lives. While we will never “arrive,” we can be better men (and women) than we were yesterday.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Evangelical Pastor Gary Hamrick Says Christians Shouldn’t Affirm LGBTQ People

Bruce Gerencser 8 Comments
gary hamrick

If you really believe the Bible is the basis for your belief system, then you are going to recognize that God calls homosexuality sin.

And if you operate from that standard, from that description, from that definition, then it’s a matter of ‘how do I communicate truth In love?’ 

Being loving is not denying the truth. That’s a very unloving thing. Being loving toward somebody is figuring out a sensitive way to communicate the truth. It’s a very unloving thing to say: ‘Well, I’m just going to affirm them [LGBTQ people] and not really tell them the truth.’ So you’re not doing them any good, and you’re not being honest before the Lord or to yourself.

….

It’s really easy to confront someone, even if you do it in a loving way, about something that the culture and God both agree on” but challenging when “the culture is saying the opposite.

Just the fact that you might hold the belief that homosexuality is wrong, you’re going to be labeled a hater, intolerant, a bigot.

You can’t control that. All you can control is: ‘I want to honor God and I want to always be truthful, and so I’m going to look for a gentle and sincere way to communicate truth when necessary when it comes up. 

….

If somebody is a pathological liar, [and we tell them], ‘Well, that’s OK, everybody lies.’ Why are you saying that?

Or somebody is a gossip, or somebody is in premarital heterosexual sex, [and you say], ‘Well, that’s OK. You know, we all have urges.’ … Why are we compromising the truth for the sake of just appeasing people?

— Gary Hamrick, pastor of Cornerstone Chapel in Leesburg, Virginia, The Christian Post, Megachurch pastor says it’s ‘very unloving’ for Christians to affirm friends’ LGBT lifestyles, June 8, 2022

Hamrick’s intellectually challenged son, Austin, got in on the lovefest, saying:

The phrase: ‘Love is Love’ is not a very stable motto to stand on. I mean, I love a lot of things that are not beneficial for me. My daughter, she’s 4. She loves to run in the middle of the road. And if she just said, ‘Hey, love is love. Why would you infringe on what I love to do?’ Well, it’s because I know that there are harmful consequences to her love for running in the middle of the road.

“You love Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Now, to indulge in a lifestyle of Krispy Kreme doughnuts, there might be some harmful consequences to that.” 

[The younger Hamrick said Christians should look to the Bible to find what is truly “good love.”]

God says [about] how we should flourish in our sexuality and in relationships. 

Love is love means you should affirm everything that I want or desire. … It’s not true love. True love is to will the good of another.

Sure sounds like the elder Hamrick dropped his son on his head when he was young.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Socialism Leads to Sexual Perversion

Bruce Gerencser 7 Comments
e calvin beisner

Back in 1987, World magazine published an article by veteran journalist Garry John Moes that asked, “Is there a connection between Socialist doctrine and the homosexual rights movement?”

That striking lead disturbed me. While the article presented clear evidence that there is, in fact, such a connection, it didn’t answer a corollary question: Why is there a connection between homosexuality and socialism?

Why, for instance, did Plato endorse both socialism and homosexuality? Why, today, are many homosexuals — and others in the LGBTQIA+ movements — also socialists?

Back then I set out to answer that question in another article in World titled “Denial of Distinction: Socialism’s Roots and Sexual Deviance.” Its lessons are even more relevant today than they were 35 years ago.

….

A fundamental biblical doctrine revealed here is that there are real, abiding, basic distinctions in this world. Some religions — Hinduism and Buddhism, animism and spiritism — believe that all is fundamentally one, that there are no distinctions at the root of reality. Not Biblical Christianity. For the Bible, one is not two; evil is not good; light is not darkness; bitter is not sweet.

When God’s vineyard becomes indistinguishable from the wild vines around it, He tears down its hedge or wall. He will not permit a false distinction to remain. That is why God insists that evil and good, light and darkness, sweet and bitter not be confused with each other.

To those who deny such distinctions — who say that the Church can be like the world, who obscure the distinction between good and evil — to them, God says, “Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and clever in their own sight!” As if to say, “They may be wise in their own eyes, but not in Mine. I am the Judge before whom they must stand. They may overlook distinctions, but I will not!”

What joins socialism with homosexuality and all forms of sexual perversion? They all run against, consciously or subconsciously, of the biblical doctrine of fundamental distinctions.

Biblical thinking recognizes a distinction between Church and world. The church is God’s private property, “a people for God’s own possession” (1 Peter 2:9), and it has a hedge or wall of doctrines and ethics built around it to distinguish it from the world. It must not do what the world does, but must perform God’s judgments and statutes, in which it finds life (Leviticus 18:3-5).

Just as the Bible insists that God has property in the Church, so it insists in the commandment, “Thou shalt not steal,” that people have property that must be distinguished from everyone else’s property. Socialism denies that distinction, claiming that everything belongs to everyone. In so doing, it breaks down a wall of distinction by which God orders reality, and to avoid chaos it reverts to another kind of order: totalitarianism. The Bible also insists that property is a just reward for work, not to be divided equally among all people regardless of their contribution to its production (Luke 19:12–26; 2 Thessalonians 3:10). Again, socialism denies this fundamental distinction, insisting on an impossible equality of economic condition.

What of sexuality? The Bible insists that God made man male and female, and that the distinction must be upheld. Neither adultery (Deuteronomy 22:22), nor fornication (Deuteronomy 22:23-29), nor transvestism (Deuteronomy 22:5), nor homosexuality (Leviticus 18:22), nor bestiality (Leviticus 18:23), let alone transgenderism, may be condoned among the people of God. Adultery and fornication, polygamy and polyandry, and polyamorism, deny the distinction between one’s spouse and all other members of the opposite sex. Homosexuality and transgenderism deny the distinction between male and female. Bestiality, with its religious roots in polytheistic evolutionary doctrines of the origin of the world and mankind, denies the distinction between human beings and animals.

Socialism and all forms of sexual perversion have this in common: they attack fundamental distinctions God has built into creation. Where they come into closest ideological contact is in denying the exclusivity of certain relationships. Socialism denies the exclusivity of property as belonging to one person or family and not to others. Sexual perversion denies the exclusivity of sexual relations to marriage between one male and one female.

Distinctions are fundamental to biblical thought: distinctions of order and chaos, light and darkness, good and evil, animal and human, female and male, saved and damned, Church and world, holy and unholy. So are distinctions of work and sloth, individual and community, private and communal property, freedom and slavery, lawfulness and unlawfulness, variety and uniformity.

Each in its own way — socialism and sexual perversion — denies such distinctions. They rebel against the fundamental orders of God’s creation. They must not be countenanced among God’s people — now, any more than 35 years ago.

— E. Calvin Beisner, Ph.D.,Founder and National Spokesman of The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, The Christian Post, Denying the binary: Why socialism and sexual perversion go hand in hand, June 24, 2022

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: Evangelical Robin Self Says You Can’t be a Christian Pastor if You Are Pro-LGBTQ

Bruce Gerencser 4 Comments
christians condemn gays

Dear pastors,

If you are silent on the issues of homosexuality in your churches, then you are useless.
If you turn a blind eye to the scourge and infiltration of LGBT affirmation in our pews you are a hireling and need to find another “occupation”.

If your church is flying a “pride” flag, you are not of God, nor do you represent Him in any aspect.
If you are riding the fence to appear more “loving” and “accepting” of wicked acts that God calls abominations, you yourself are wicked and weak.

If you are allowing homosexuals to participate in your church’s works of ministry, you are an agent of Satan and his works of darkness.

….

You are to preach the WHOLE COUNSEL of God, which not only includes His love, but His wrath and His judgment of sin.

To welcome open, unrepentant sin into your midst is actually to hate the ones committing those sins, because with your welcoming embrace you are denying their need for repentance which would lead them toward life instead of death. (It is also to hate the faithful saints in your pews who want to live in holiness and righteousness. You are perpetuating a lie upon your flocks and leading in paths of unrighteousness.)
To love them is to give them the good news of Christ’s atoning work on the cross that is the only way to salvation, and that they MUST turn from sin. All sin.

….

If you are of the opinion that you can be gay AND Christian, understand that this goes against everything God has said in His word. You cannot explain it away, or twist it to say what you want. If you believe this lie, then you are suppressing the truth and your heart has been darkened. If you are affirming those who are acting wickedly, then God says your partake in their wickedness.

Although they know full well God’s just sentence—that those who practice such things deserve to die —they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them. Romans 1:32

So know, pastors, when you succumb to adopt the depravity of the culture into your churches, the demons rejoice and you are a tool of the enemy. There IS forgiveness if you repent. But you are unqualified to be behind a pulpit. So step down now.

— Robin Self, A Worthy Walk, Dear Pastors . . . , June 20, 2022

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: IFB Pastor Jonathan Shelley Calls for the Execution of LGBTQ People

Bruce Gerencser 19 Comments
jonathan shelley

Yesterday, I posted the following comment by Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preacher Dillion Awes:

Every single homosexual in our country should be charged with the crime, the abomination of homosexuality, that they have. They should be convicted in a lawful trial. They should be sentenced with death.

They should be lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head! That’s what God teaches. That’s what the Bible says. You don’t like it? You don’t like God’s Word, because that is what God says.

Awes made this hateful, violent statement in a sermon preached last Sunday at Stedfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. Stedfast is pastored by Jonathan Shelley, a one-time friend and disciple of Steven Anderson, pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona. (Please see Understanding Steven Anderson, Pastor Faithful Word Baptist Church, Tempe, Arizona.)

It should come as no surprise that Awes said what he did. While Awes, Shelley, and Anderson are proudly willing to let their homophobia hang out for all to see, scores of other IFB preachers, unwilling to say such vile things in public, believe as they do.

Awes is a product of the IFB church movement and the “ministry” of Jonathan Shelley.

Just last week, Shelley said:

According to God we should hate Pride, not celebrate it. God has already ruled that murder, adultery, witchcraft, rape, bestiality, and homosexuality are crimes worthy of capital punishment.”

Last year, Shelley stated:

The Bible says that they’re [LGBTQ people] worthy of death! They say, ‘Are you sad when fags die?’ No. I think it’s great! I hope they all die! I would love it if every fag would die right now.

Sick fucks, the lot of them. Dangerous too. Imagine if such people gained the power of the state?

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Sounds of Fundamentalism: LGBTQ People Should Be Executed, Says IFB Preacher Dillon Awes

Bruce Gerencser 35 Comments
pastor dilllon awes

The Sounds of Fundamentalism is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section.  Let’s have some fun!

Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a video clip of homophobe Dillon Awes preaching at Stedfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas — an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation pastored by homophobe-in-chief Jonathan Shelley.

Awes hatefully and violently, and, allegedly, “Biblically” stated:

Every single homosexual in our country should be charged with the crime, the abomination of homosexuality, that they have. They should be convicted in a lawful trial. They should be sentenced with death.

They should be lined up against the wall and shot in the back of the head! That’s what God teaches. That’s what the Bible says. You don’t like it? You don’t like God’s Word, because that is what God says.

Everything about Awes suggests this young preacher boy lives in the darkest corner of the proverbial closet, joining many of his fellow IFB preachers. Shelley has taught him well.

The saddest thing about this sermon clip? All the people who shouted AMEN! Here’s a church filled with people who are okay with rounding up LGBTQ and summarily murdering them. Sick fucks, the lot of them.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Tampa Bay Rays Players are Proudly Homophobic, But Say They Love and Respect LGBTQ People

Bruce Gerencser 6 Comments
christians attack lgbt people

Deadline reports:

The Tampa Bay Rays’ 16th “Pride Night” was held Saturday, the Florida club’s annual show of support for the LGBTQ+ community.

Most Major League Baseball teams acknowledge Pride Month in some way, with the Minnesota Twins and Toronto Blue Jays including drag queens as part of their celebrations.

Tampa Bay was more muted, simply having its players wear rainbow logos on caps and sleeves for its game against the Chicago White Sox. However, several players opted out of participation, citing religious reasons.

The Tampa Bay Times reported that pitchers Jason Adam, Jalen Beeks, Brooks Raley, Jeffrey Springs, and Ryan Thompson were among those who didn’t wear the logos of support.

Jason Adam, a pitcher who only tosses one way, released a statement on behalf of his fellow Jesus-loving, LGBTQ-hating homophobes:

A lot of it comes down to faith, to like a faith-based decision. So it’s a hard decision. Because, ultimately, we all said what we want is them to know that all are welcome and loved here.

But when we put it on our bodies, I think a lot of guys decided that it’s just a lifestyle that maybe — not that they look down on anybody or think differently — it’s just that maybe we don’t want to encourage it if we believe in Jesus, who’s encouraged us to live a lifestyle that would abstain from that behavior. Just like (Jesus) encourages me as a heterosexual male to abstain from sex outside of the confines of marriage. It’s no different.

It’s not judgmental. It’s not looking down. It’s just what we believe the lifestyle he’s encouraged us to live, for our good, not to withhold. But, again, we love these men and women, we care about them and we want them to feel safe and welcome here.

Adam would have us believe that they are not being judgmental; that he and his fellow Christian bigots love and respect LGBTQ people. Adams reveals his ignorance of LGBTQ people by saying that there is something morally wrong with their chosen gender, who they love, and who they fuck. Using Adam’s logic, I could just as easily say that he and his fellow teammates aren’t really Christians; that every time they play a game on Sunday they are violating the Ten Commandments. Talk about hypocrites, demanding unbelievers keep their peculiar interpretation of the law of God while they don’t do the same. And does anyone think that these players are virgins or were virgins when they married? It’s possible, I suppose, but I doubt it. Besides, I suspect Adam and his virile friends have looked at women or two with lust in their hearts; lust Jesus called adultery. And the Bible is clear, no adulterer shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Think of all the fornicating that goes on among professional baseball players. Why hasn’t Adam taken a public stand on this issue? Or, is this really all about heterosexual men who think same-sex anything is “yucky”? Don’t they know Jesus was gay? After all, his disciples were all men. Just saying . . .

The players could have quietly not worn the logos. Instead, they decided to run onto the field, sans jock straps, letting their hateful, perverse religion hang out. Personally, I am not a fan of the meaningless, performative shows of support for LGBTQ people sports teams are fond of doing these days. Do we really think rainbow logos, signs, and flags at stadiums will make one bit of difference? Of course not. I suspect LGBTQ people are tired of shallow shows of support from businesses and sports teams that cause no meaningful difference in their lives.

The refusal to wear the logos is being framed as a freedom of religion issue. It’s not. Players are expected to wear all sorts of garb on game days. Players often wear pro-military uniforms and logos. Imagine what the outrage level would be if some players refused to wear these things, voicing their disapproval of the flag-waving nationalism that is so prominent at baseball games these days. Yet, because this is being framed as a religious issue, we are expected to respect the players’ homophobic beliefs. Change the issue to one of skin color — as was common in the 50s — should we be expected to ignore the sincerely held beliefs of racist players? Of course not.

Tampa Bay management should have released a statement calling out the players’ homophobic statement. Instead, the team said nothing. Better yet, give the players a day off. After all, they are Christians. They could have spent the day in church, reflecting on WWJD?

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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The Southern Baptist Convention and the Roman Catholic Church Kept Us in the Same “Closet”

Bruce Gerencser 81 Comments
lgbtq

Guest Post by MJ Lisbeth

A week and a half ago, Southern Baptist Convention leaders released a list of alleged sex-abuse offenders that had been kept secret. Perhaps it is not fair of me to say that I am not surprised, as I have never had any connection with the SBC. On the other hand, having experienced childhood sexual abuse while serving as an altar boy in the Roman Catholic Church—and hearing whispers about sexual harassment of women and teenaged girls in the Evangelical church of which I was later a part—I don’t think I was being cynical in saying to myself, “Well, what does anybody expect?” upon reading about the SBC report.

Perhaps even less surprising, to me, was the accompanying revelation: victims who alerted church authorities, at whatever level, were advised to “be quiet” or, worse, intimidated into silence. It sounded like an alternate-universe version, if you will, of my own story. Decades passed, and the priest who abused me died, before I spoke or wrote about my experience. For one thing, I had neither the language nor other cultural contexts for telling about what was done to me: there was no open discussion about such matters in the time and place in which I grew up, and priests and other church officials were seen as beyond reproach. In such an environment, even if I knew the names of the parts of my body that priest touched, I could not have told of my ordeal in a way that would have been more credible, in the eyes of my community, than anything that priest—or the priests to whom he reported—could have said. I can’t help but to think that if I could have described what the priest did to me—beyond that “it felt weird”—someone, whether a relative or a father in the church, would have told me to keep my story to myself.

That nobody had to tell me not to tell—at least at that time in my life—is a testament to, not only the esteem in which priests in the church were held in my community, but also the power the Church has wielded. It also says something about how powerless I was. Perhaps the most important lesson I have learned from carrying my sexual abuse, alone—and, years later, seeing children bearing their burdens without a champion or mentor—is that nothing is more damaging than inculcating, or allowing a child to grow up, with a sense that their reality—or, more importantly, what they have to say about it—is not to be trusted or believed.

For that matter, invalidation of the fear, anger or whatever else one might feel about having been violated—which, by definition, is done by someone with more power or, at least, credibility—serves only to further traumatize the victim. That is what SBC officials did when they told people to “be quiet.” That is what my parish, and larger Church officials, could just as well have done after I was abused by a priest. 

So, while the abuse I experienced as an altar boy in a Roman Catholic parish in Brooklyn, New York in the 1960s is different from what girls and women in the Southern Baptist Convention endured, we have this much in common: we suffered in silence for too long as a result of churches that were more interested in preserving their “institutional integrity” than in helping those of us who have been victimized. That silence—my “closet,” if you will—hindered my development in so many ways, not the least of which is that I didn’t affirm my identity as a woman until my mid-40s. I can only wish that those whom the SBC told to “keep quiet” didn’t lose as much—time, or anything else—by remaining in a “closet” I know all too well.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Bruce Gerencser