Lego recently announced its launch of a rainbow-colored building block set available June 1 – just in time for Gay Pride Month.
Lego has created its first LGBTQ toy that glorifies gender inclusivity and ignores one’s biological sex. This 346-piece set includes a rainbow-colored background and figures of each color. There is even a purple drag queen figure, according to Matthew Ashton, the designer of the set.
“We’re super excited to reveal our new set – Lego: Everyone Is Awesome!” the company tweeted Thursday. “Because we celebrate every Lego builder.”
“The set features a rainbow wall, plus black and brown, and the colors of the transgender flag: sky blue, white, and pink,” Fox Business reported. “The rainbow wall has 11 accompanying figures with a corresponding color.”
With the pro-LGBTQ toy being recommended for ages 18+, many critics are concerned about the actual contents inside the new product’s box and its appropriateness for minors, but Ashton insists that it is for all.
“I wanted to create a simple little set with a powerful message of love, inclusivity, and acceptance … so here it is! #lego love to you all!” tweeted Ashton, who is also a Lego vice president of design.
Aston claims the set advocates tolerance but is also persistent that Lego be on board to build the LGBTQ agenda.
“That’s what’s been so important to me in getting this set out with a message that we can be really proud of,” he added.
It’s apparent that even toy manufacturers are attempting to indoctrinate children by exposing them to the LGBTQ lifestyle. Why can’t Lego let kids be kids instead of glamorizing a sinful lifestyle?
Lego is confusing our innocent children by attempting to normalize this lifestyle choice, which is not only irresponsible but also dangerous to the well-being of our children. Toy manufacturers need to remain neutral and should avoid aiming to please a small percentage of customers while pushing away conservative customers.
It is crystal clear that Lego is attempting to desensitize our youth, so One Million Moms believes it’s urgent to warn parents of the company’s agenda.
One News Now covered this story recently. We have included the article here for additional information. One News Now is a division of American Family Association, the parent organization of One Million Moms.
We must remain diligent and stand up for biblical values and truth. Scripture says multiple times that homosexuality is wrong, and God will not tolerate this sinful nature.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
This year’s Easter/Passover/Ramadan season has been interesting. For one thing it’s the second such holiday cycle during the COVID-19 pandemic. For another, it witnessed two developments that, at first glance seem contradictory.
The first: A Gallup poll revealed that fewer than 50 percent of Americans identify themselves as members of a church, synagogue, mosque or other religious institution. That is the smallest proportion since 1937, when Gallup first asked the question and 73 percent claimed to be so affiliated.
The second: Arkansas’ state legislature overrode Governor Asa Hutchinson’s veto of a bill that would bar transgender girls from participating in school sports program and would keep health-service professionals from providing transgender-related health care to minors. Similar legislation is on the table in other states, and in others even more draconian measures are under review: Health care professionals who help young trans people get the care they need could face long prison sentences and the revocation of their licenses and certificates.
Although those two developments seem at odds with each other, it actually makes perfect sense that some states are trying to keep young transgender people from affirming themselves at the same time more Americans are dissociating themselves from churches.
Why is that?
Any time a major cultural or societal change is underway reaction to it can be fierce and even violent. Think of the Counter-Reformation, or the way cops and everyday citizens—let alone Klan members—tried, brutally, to resist the Civil Rights movement.
The bad news is, of course, that reactionary people and movements foment fear and hatred, and inspire or even embolden haters to all manner of violence, including murder. The silver lining, if you will, is that the virulence of their reaction is a sure sign that they are ultimately on the wrong, and losing, side of history.
At the dawn of the Civil Rights movement, for every white American who participated in a lynching or cross-burning, there were many more who accepted or rationalized Jim Crow laws as well as other, subtler kinds of discrimination. They might not have chased a black kid off their block, but they didn’t want the same black kid to date, let alone marry, their kid. They knew, deep down, that change was needed but “the time wasn’t right.”
Slowly, such people became aware of their own deeply-held, and often unconscious, assumptions and realized there was no rational basis for them. Moreover, they came to realize that the American system of apartheid was not only unjust and irrational; it benefited no one. The Loving decision not only righted a wrong; it aligned with the Constitution and simply made logical sense. The social order would not be broken by people marrying people of “different” races any more than it would be when members of those “different” races—or faiths or gender identities– entered schools, professions and neighborhoods that, previously, had been off-limits to them.
So, racist beliefs could no more be defended than rigid ideas about gender roles, identities and hierarchies with science, logic or law. The Loving decision deemed that “miscegenation” laws violated the Constitution; four and a half decades later, Robert Shelby, a conservative Republican judge in Utah, would declare that state’s laws defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman as unconstitutional (a pivotal moment, I believe, in the fight for marriage equality). In a similar vein, Asa Hutchinson—a Republican– vetoed an anti-transgender youth bill because, he said, its restrictions were “government overreach.” By the time those actions were taken, people had come to realize that gender identity and sexual orientation cannot be legislated or medicated away, and that racial purity is a myth at best and a lie at worst. (The human race began in Africa. That’s Anthropology 101.)
Those events, of course, have everything to do with Americans’ loosening relationship to churches and such: Nearly all of organized religion—especially Evangelical Christianity—is predicated on racial/ethnic hierarchies and rigid gender identities and roles. It’s pretty difficult to tell a woman to submit herself to a man, in her home or in a church, when she’s running a business or graduating at the top of her law school class. Even if it were possible or even feasible, there just isn’t any rational reason why a woman should stand back if she knows better about something than her male spouse or colleague—or why she should align herself with an institution where she is, at best, a second-class citizen and, at worst, a mere incubator.
Those who benefit from such systems of oppression are, of course, not happy to see the edifices that hold them up being dismantled, brick by brick, or eroded. They also worry that people, especially the young, are not interested in upholding those structures or institutions. The young make up a large portion of the religiously unaffiliated (“nones”), Gallup found.
It means that, deep down, religiously affiliated and reactionary folks know they aren’t going to find replacements for themselves among their children. So, they know that whatever they feel the need to do, they’ll have to do more of, with more intensity, for as long as they can. Their behavior will become more extreme, and they will do whatever they can to hold to their notions of gender, marriage, family and society. That means forcing those notions on everyone else through irrational prohibitions. The only way to get people to support such bans is to stoke their fears by invoking stereotypes, junk science and outright lies. And the only way to enforce those bans is through force. What I have just described culminated in Donald Trump’s judicial appointments: He chose jurists who oppose what most Americans want, including safe and legal access to abortion, the right to marry whomever they wish and to live in accordance with whatever they know to be true about themselves.
Those judicial appointments, the law Asa Hutchinson tried to stop and other retrograde actions and policies are thus part of a reaction against the inevitable: the secularization of the United States of America. Somehow it’s fitting that they came together during the Easter/Passover/Ramadan season.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
A local man by the name of Patrick Holt from Grover Hill, Ohio, responded to my May 25, 2016 letter to the editor of the Defiance Crescent-News concerning the transgender bathroom use issue. Holt pastors Bible Baptist Church, an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church in Grover Hill. I featured his church in the On the Road Looking for God’s True Church series. Here’s what Holt had to say (spelling and grammar in the original):
This is a reply to the May 25 letter by Bruce Gerencser.
In his letter he implied that someone, like myself, who objected to a male using the same bathroom that my mother, wife, daughters, and granddaughters were using was hateful. So, basically, if you disagree with someone, then that, according to Bruce, is hateful. Using that same logic, then Bruce Gerencser, must hate Christians, God and the Bible. Would that not be a proper statement?
Patrick Holt, Grover Hill
Holt would like people to think that the transgender bathroom use issue is all about differences of opinion. It’s not. Holt knows that many Evangelicals — himself included — hate LGBTQ people. Many Evangelicals — especially those at the far extreme right of Evangelicalism — want sexual perverts (code for non-heterosexuals) to be punished for their deviance. Some Evangelicals even go so far as to call for the incarceration and execution of such people. I think I am on firm ground then when I say that many Evangelicals HATE, not just the sin, but also the sinner.
Holt, as most people who hold to his version of sexual hysteria, sees the transgender bathroom use issue as one of men using the women’s restroom. He fails to understand that most of the “men” using the women’s restroom are in the process or have completed chemical/surgical gender reassignment. This means that the “men” Holt is so worried about look like women.
Why doesn’t Holt mention “women” using the men’s restroom? I have yet to hear a peep from Holt’s crowd about transgender people using the men’s room. Again, most of the transgender “women” using the men’s restroom look like men. One of the reasons Evangelicals focus on “men” using the women’s restroom is because they view their mothers, wives, daughters, and granddaughters as weaker vessels (1 Peter 3:7) in need of protection. I suspect if a man actually went into the women’s restroom while women were present, well . . . he would likely run screaming from the room, minus his testicles.
Holt’s attempt to paint me as a hater falls flat on its face. People who know me know that I am not inclined to hate anyone. I hate certain ideas and beliefs. I despise Holt’s Evangelical beliefs because I think they lead to intellectual stagnation and can and do cause psychological harm. And in some instances, these beliefs can cause physical harm. Politically, Evangelical beliefs are the theological currency that drives the move towards establishing a Christian theocracy. Denying the separation of church and state, many Evangelicals will not rest until King Jesus is sitting on a throne in the Oval Office. Socially, Evangelical beliefs lead to cultural stagnation and impede progress. Evangelicals, armed with an ancient religious text they believe is inerrant and infallible, have waged war against women, undocumented workers, abortion doctors, atheists, humanists, secularists, Democrats, non-Evangelicals, liberal Christians, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and those who have sex outside of monogamous heterosexual marriages. Scientifically, many Evangelicals are determined to teach young-earth creationism and Noah’s flood in public school classrooms. You see, there are plenty of Evangelical beliefs to hate, but unlike Holt with LGBTQ people, I don’t hate Evangelicals. While I think people such as Ken Ham, Steven Anderson, the Phelps clan, and a cast of thousands, are first-rate cretins, dolts, morons, halfwits, loons, numbskulls, schmucks, or numb nuts, I don’t hate them. If anything, I pity them, knowing that religious ignorance keeps them chained to the Bible with its fables and contradictions.
Holt — like many Evangelicals — thinks atheists hate God — God being, of course, his peculiar version of the Christian deity. If Holt were sitting across the table from me I would ask him if he hated Harry Potter, Santa Claus, or Darth Vader. Holt would surely reply, Of course not. These characters are fictional. I wonder if Holt would see the irony in his response? Atheists don’t hate the Christian God — or any other deity for that matter — because he is a fictional being. Suppose in 2055, the followers of Harry Potter have turned J.K. Rowling’s books into divine texts read each Monday at Potterite churches. Taken literally, these divine texts lead people to do all sorts of mischief, often leading to physical harm or death. Atheists in 2055 would likely hate the beliefs of the Potterites. Does this mean these atheists think Harry Potter is a real person? Of course not. So it is with the Christian God. I don’t hate God for one simple reason — he doesn’t exist. What I DO hate, however, is what is done in the Christian God’s name.
As far as hating the Bible, Holt surely knows that the King James Version he holds dear is an inanimate object, right? Hating inanimate objects is a waste of time. What I DO hate is what is done with inanimate objects. Guns are used to wage war and murder. Cars are used by drunks and others to kill and maim. And the Bible is used to indoctrinate and enslave. I hate how the Bible is used in our modern world to promote ignorance, often leading to bloodshed and loss of freedom. So, yes, Patrick Holt, I hate God, Christianity, and the Bible, but NOT in the ways you think I do.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
In the Western world, Evangelical churches are hemorrhaging members left and right — particularly younger congregants. Evangelical pollsters and church growth gurus continue to discuss WHY so many people raised in Evangelical families are exiting stage left once they get out of high school, and WHAT can be done to retain them. I managed restaurants for several major fast-food chains. Several of the stores I managed faced declining sales. As manager, I was tasked with figuring out why customer counts were down and what could be done to get former and new customers to spend their money at the restaurant. This is exactly what is going on in Evangelical churches.
Churches and their pastors know that their future rests in retaining younger members after they graduate from high school and go off to college. Yet, most Evangelical churches (don’t let megachurches skew the picture of what is really happening) are losing younger members — not replacing the older church members who are dying off. Average congregation age continues to climb, especially among sects such as the Southern Baptist Convention — the largest Protestant sect in the United States.
The reasons for these defections are many. However, it seems clear that many young adults are leaving their childhood religious homes because of politics, science, and Evangelicalism’s increasing inability to honestly answer the hard questions of life. Younger adults refuse to be placated by appeals to faith and authority. If their church leaders can’t answer their questions, then these budding skeptics look elsewhere. Further, Evangelical churches, pastors, and educational institutions threw their weight behind the culture war, justifiably earning the label as the most hated religion in America. Younger Christians watched from the sidelines as their pastors, teachers, and parents supported Donald Trump, villainized LGBTQ people, labored to outlaw abortion, and supported systematic racism. These young adults rightly concluded that they no longer wanted anything do to with their parents’ religion.
Most Evangelicals have what I call a “borrowed faith.” The bulk of Evangelical members were raised in the church. Everything they heard and experienced reinforced the faith taught to them by their parents, pastors, and youth leaders. For readers not raised in such environments, it is often hard to understand how isolated and intellectually stilted such places are. Everything is governed by a set of propositional facts about God, Jesus, the Bible, and their peculiar version of Christianity. While “questions” are sometimes permitted, the only answers allowed are those which conform to the one true faith.
Evangelical pastors know they must protect their churches from the Philistine horde outside the gates, so they use lies, distortions, and repetition of beliefs to hopefully inoculate their congregations from faith destroying questions and doubts. Churches and their pastors know that atheism and agnosticism are existential threats to their existence, so what do they do? They either pretend there’s no such thing as an atheist (Romans 1) or they lie about what it is atheists actually believe. One need only watch YouTube videos shat out by Evangelical apologists to see how these men grossly misrepresent atheist beliefs. If atheism is no threat to Evangelicalism, why all the interest from apologists? If God and his Word will always prevail against the godless, why do apologists spend so much time attacking atheism? Their behavior suggests that atheism is a real and present danger for Evangelical churches. Thus, pastors and apologists are willing to lie, distort, and misrepresent atheist beliefs (and their own beliefs) in their attempts to hang on to those whom pollsters call the “Nones.”
Nones are best described as those who are disaffected by religion. While many Nones are atheists or agnostics, some are not. Nones are often people who no longer give a shit about the religion of their youth. Quite simply, their churches, pastors, and parents no longer provide adequate answers to their doubts and questions. Many of them are sickened by the Evangelical culture war and the reduction of church on Sundays into a spectator sport. Four years of support for Donald Trump and the immoral policies of the Republican Party have driven thoughtful, caring young adults out of the church. And what do many Evangelical apologists and pastors do? They double-down, suggesting that the problem is a lack of Bible knowledge among young adults. “Get back in church,” these preachers demand, “and listen to my preaching.” These supposed men of God think that there’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a few verses and sermons from the Bible. They refuse to acknowledge that the real issue is that disaffected young adults no longer buy what they are selling; that behavior speaks louder than words. These salesmen for Jesus also fail to understand that the Nones often sat in their churches for years, silently plotting exits from these temples of ignorance and irrationality. Over the years, I have corresponded with countless young adults who were biding their time until they were old enough to stop attending church or move out on their own. Some of the people I have talked with have actually escaped the snare of Fundamentalism, but they keep the true nature of their beliefs secret. Even older people can be trapped behind enemy lines, so to speak, unable or unwilling to tell their spouses, children, parents, and grandparents that they no longer believe.
I am often asked for advice on how to tell your Evangelical parents that you no longer believe in God. (Please see Count the Cost Before You Say “I am an Atheist.” This is not an easy question to answer due to the fact that there are so many variables to consider. When my wife and I left Christianity in 2008, I drafted a letter and sent it to family, friends, former parishioners, and colleagues in the ministry. (Please see Dear Family, Friends, and Former Parishioners.) While this letter was signed by both of us, it was largely received as coming from me alone. Polly was viewed as a lemming, a woman under the spell of her husband — a lie that still irritates the hell out of her to this day. Polly’s mother and extended family — all Independent Fundamentalist Baptists (IFB) — believe that once I die Polly will come running back to Jesus and the church. They think so little of her that they refuse to acknowledge that it was her decision alone to tell Jesus to take a hike.
Over the past 12 years, we have paid a heavy price for sending out that letter. We have lost all of our friends, and family relationships are strained to the point of breaking. I have been asked if I had to do it all over again would I still send out the letter? Looking at the carnage that came from the letter, was it worth it? Would it have been better for all involved if I just ducked and kept quiet? Maybe, but that has never been my style. I knew the Evangelical gossip mills were working overtime as they deconstructed my life, my ministry, and even my marriage. The only way I knew to control what was being said about me and Polly was to write a letter and send it to hundreds of family members, friends, former parishioners, and colleagues in the ministry. I thought, naively, that this would put an end to the lies and gossip. Silly me. I should have known better. While the deconstructions of my life have waned a bit, I still hear from people from time to time or learn second or third hand that I am still be talked about behind my back. So while I stand on decision to send a letter to those who knew me, I would never suggest to anyone else that they do the same — that is unless you want immediate fireworks and assaults on your character.
Many Evangelicals-turned-atheists quietly leave the religion of their parents and family behind. They dodge questions or obfuscate the true nature of their unbelief. “Mom, I just haven’t found a church that I like,” a little white lie that hides the fact she hasn’t darkened the doors of a church since going to college. I am what most people consider the village atheist. I live in rural northwest Ohio, five miles from the place of my birth. I can safely say that virtually everyone knows who I am. Yet, on occasion, I will run into older people (who often don’t have computers/Internet) who knew me from my preaching days. They will ask me, “Bruce, where are you preaching these days?” assuming I am still a Bible-believing preacher. I typically reply, “I am not preaching anywhere right now, ” and then I so quickly change the subject that they don’t know what hit them. Should I give them a rundown of my loss of faith in the middle of the grocery store? I think not. Am I deliberately deceiving them? No. I am just choosing what questions to answer. I don’t owe anyone an accounting of my life.
Some Evangelicals-turned-atheists want to be out and proud. They are tired of hiding in the shadows, tired of giving evasive answers to questions about their religious beliefs and relationship with Jesus. Yet, they know that sharing with their parents that they have abandoned the family deity will not only cause conflict but hurt the people they love. Further, there is a real risk of being excommunicated from their family.
For those of you who want to stand up at the next post-COVID family reunion and shout, I AM AN ATHEIST!, I suggest that you carefully weigh the consequences of doing so. I am not saying that you shouldn’t do this — far from it. However, once you out yourself to your parents, you no longer control what happens next. LGBTQ readers can tell us this is true, and that often there is a heavy price to be paid for being true to self.
And therein lies the fundamental issue for Evangelicals-turned-atheists: being true to self. We all want to live authentic lives. We all want the right to be who and what we are. Unfortunately, Evangelical Christianity is not known for love, acceptance, and tolerance. Countless atheists were cut off from their families, told never to return until they “got right with God.” It is heartbreaking to learn that many Evangelical parents love Jesus and their church far more than they love their atheist children. In fact, such people believe their churches are their true families. The notion that blood is thicker than water just doesn’t apply in many Evangelical families.
Generally, I encourage Evangelicals-turned-atheists to be honest and frank with their believing parents. Life is too short to deny who and what you really are. If your parents truly love you, they will understand. Maybe not today, tomorrow, or a year from now, but they will eventually embrace you as their son or daughter, regardless of your beliefs. And if they don’t? Then you have to ask yourself if you really want to continue to have a relationship with your parents. I know, I know, harsh words, but your life is short, my friend, and isn’t it better to surround yourself with people who genuinely love you and accept you as you are? And it goes without saying that we should do the same for our parents. We are not asking them to join our merry band of heathens. All that ask for is respect.
I hope you find this post helpful. I would love to hear you tell of your own experiences with your parents in the comment section. What advice would you give to Evangelicals-turned-atheists who no longer want to lurk in the shadows of life?
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
As a card-carrying-member of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement, I often preached sermons condeming homosexuality. According to my infallible interpretation, the Bible condemned homosexual sex. Being the faithful Bible preacher that I was, I thought it important to preach against man-with-man, woman-with-woman sex. Never mind the fact that I did not personally know anyone who was gay. Well, I had my suspicions about several people — Polly’s late uncle comes to mind — but as far as actually knowing someone who was gay? Not one. I would learn years later that several of the students in our Christian school were gay or bisexual. Consider this statistic. I was a raging homophobe who railed against homosexuality and sexual “sin” in general. Yet, one-third of the students in our school were either gay or bisexual. Add to that the students who likely engaged in premarital sex, and I think I can safely say my preaching did little to change hearts and minds on sexual identity and activity.
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.
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.
This story is a reminder of the fact that it is hard to condemn people when you actually know them; when you have actually talked with them or broken bread with them. Countless Evangelical preachers rail against atheists, yet most of them don’t know any atheists personally. I have two Evangelical friends — a married couple. That’s it. I have been friends with the man for almost 55 years. For several years, I was their pastor. I know their children and grandchildren and extended family. Until the pandemic hit, three or four times a year, we would go out to eat, thoroughly enjoying one another’s company. We agreed that we wouldn’t talk about religion. If asked a question, I would answer it, but outside of that, we focused on the things we had in common: family, grandchildren, food, and travel.
Our friendship has survived because we see each other as human beings, people we love and respect. Yes, my friends are deeply disappointed over my loss of faith. They might even pray that I will come back to the Lord. But, my friends have never let my atheism get in the way of our relationship. I thank them for doing what 99.9% of my Evangelical friends couldn’t or refused to do: see me as a person, to see Polly and me as the same people we were back when we followed Jesus. Our character and personalities remain the same. Sure, we don’t believe in God, but does that make us bad people?
A gay customer taught me a valuable lesson years ago, one I am still learning. It is far too easy to sequester yourself with people who only think and act like you. Our nation is overrun with racist, white nationalist people. It’s easy to put the blame all on Donald Trump and the Republican Party, but I suspect that a lot of racists don’t have friends of color. They live in communities and are members of churches and groups where the sign on the door might as well say, WHITES ONLY. So it is in many Evangelical churches — particularly IFB congregations. Such churches are monocultures, places where everyone thinks, acts, and looks the same way. Until they are exposed in a friendly, nonthreatening way to people different from them, it is unlikely they will change their minds.
Were you a homophobe, racist, or bigot? What changed your mind? Please share your experiences in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
Knoxville Baptist Tabernacle, pastored by Tony Greene, is an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church in Knoxville, Tennessee. According to the church’s website:
In May, 1952, Dr. R.W. “Bob” Bevington led a group of earnest Christians in establishing the Knoxville Baptist Tabernacle. The Tabernacle was founded on the principles of strong Bible preaching, house-to-house soul winning, separation from the world, and support for world-wide missions.
Through the years, some of America’s greatest preachers and soul-winners have spoken from our pulpit– men such as John R. Rice, Lee Roberson, Billy McCarroll, Fred Garland, Dolphus Price, Lester Roloff, among many others.
The Tabernacle was a participating host for many years of the International Fellowship of Fundamental Baptists.
Prior to Bro. Bob’s Homegoing in 2009, the Tabernacle called Bro. Tony Greene as its second pastor. Bro. Greene continues the ministry in the same vein as Bro. Bob, with a strong emphasis on evangelism…
The church also operates a Christian school.
Several years ago, the sign at the top of this post caused quite a bit of controversy. WATE.com reported (link no longer active):
A sign posted by a Knoxville church continues to raise eyebrows and spark both discussion and outrage after it was posted online.
The sign posted by Knoxville Baptist Tabernacle Church read “Remember Satan was the first to demand equal rights.” Many people posted the picture to the WATE 6 On Your Side Facebook and Twitter pages, starting a debate about what the sign really means.
The pastor says the purpose of the sign was to send a message about unity and spark conversation in the community. He says it wasn’t meant to offend anyone.
Our sign referencing Satan demanding his equal rights to ascend into the heavens and be God was simply ‘I’ and all about that individual,” said Pastor Tony Greene. “It was not a statement against any one group in particular, you know what about the rights of the unborn babies, the rights of children, the rights of everyone?”
After the picture was posted on Facebook, there was mixed reaction to the message. Stephanie Settlemyre said, “As a Christian, I find this highly offensive, these kinds of signs and messages are exactly the reason why people are turned off by Christianity.”
Adam Miller posted, “Honestly thought that the photo was shopped, I thought, “surely someone wouldn’t post such a thing,” said Miller. “Makes me sad I was wrong, and doubly sad that these folks are in my back yard.”
Ashley Smith wrote, “Church offends many anyway, you could write Jesus loves you and someone would get bent out of shape.”
Now the sign reads: “Glad you reading, did not intend to offend, we all need Christ.”
Pastor Greene spoke about why he made the change.
“We are a diversity congregation of people. We’ve reached people that know us and know our stand in this community know what we’ve done,” said Greene. “My heart breaks in the dividedness of our country.”
Greene says they like to interact with the community and they typically change the sign once a week. Greene says they will have another message posted later this week…
Does anyone believe that Pastor Tony Greene and the Knoxville Baptist Tabernacle didn’t mean to offend? Does anyone believe they had no particular group of people in mind? Of course not. It is in the DNA of IFB pastors and churches to offend anyone and everyone who believes, thinks, acts, or lives differently than they do.
Pastor Greene’s message is clear: those demanding equal rights — you know, LGBTQ people — are in league with Satan.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Building on her atrocious post titled, You’re Not Awesome…and You Know It, Evangelical Michelle Lesley released a screed yesterday that purported to answer the question, “do women ‘lust’ after men?” As a former Evangelical pastor, I always assumed that Christians believed that women lusted just as much as their male counterparts. However, I learned that some Evangelicals don’t believe women can lust. Take the question that precipitated Lesley’s sermon to “dirty, stinking, rotten, rebellious [Evangelical] sinner [s]”:
In the past, I’ve had lots of trouble wondering about my desire and tendency to look at, and get excited by, physically attractive men, especially men who reveal a lot of themselves in underwear modeling and soft-core porn. I think this is a sin, but I’m not sure.
I’ve gotten mixed reactions when I’ve mentioned this to people. There are some who say that, yes, this is the sin of lust. Yet there are others who have told me that women cannot possibly struggle with lust, only men do. I once dealt with one particular man who was very dogmatic that God created men and women to be tempted differently, and that lust is not a temptation women deal with, so he dismissed my struggles with this subject.
When I tried to search Scripture, using Matthew 5:28, it would also seem that this is a male-only sin. So is it OK for me to keep looking at male models, including underwear modeling and soft-core porn?
According to this woman, only men can “lust.” In fact, Jesus made that very point in Matthew 5:28:
But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.
Evidently, the male pronoun in this verse means that Jesus is only talking to men, not women. It’s MEN who lust and commit adultery in their hearts, not women. This, of course, is an irrational hermeneutic, making much of the Bible irrelevant for women.
Lesley spends an inordinate amount of time building up to her answer, telling the questioner:
This is an awesome question for three reasons. First, you’re concerned about whether or not you’re sinning with the aim of mortifying this behavior if it is a sin. Second, you’re not relying on your own feelings, opinions, or experiences to determine whether or not this is a sin, you’re turning to Scripture to find out. Those are both very encouraging things. They demonstrate that the Holy Spirit is working in your heart to sanctify you and make you more like Christ.
Lesley then goes on to say that while men certainly lust more than women do — it’s their nature — women can and do lust after men. And why do women lust? Here’s Lesley’s answer:
A hundred years ago, it would have been unthinkable to see advertisements featuring nearly naked men, or strip clubs with male dancers, or pornography aimed at women, so readily available and with so little shame attached. And at that time there were probably far fewer women who struggled with the sin of lust.
These days, it’s right there on your phone or computer or TV or at the bachelorette party for your friend. Lust, lewd behavior, and lurid talk by women are actually encouraged by the feminist movement. (If men are going to objectify women with lust and porn, we’re going to objectify them right back. Really? This is equality? The right to sink to the same depth of degradation as the scuzziest of men? No thanks.) Watch any sitcom or drama on TV. You’ll see it soon enough. And, of course, there’s money to be made by making women into consumers of porn and other sexual material, so the businesses that peddle these things encourage women to lust as well. All of which means that today, just a hundred years later, far more women are struggling with the sin of lust.
So we can see that the reality is that lust is a temptation experienced by some women, even though men are more prone to it.
According to Lesley, women lust more now than yesteryear because of — drum roll, please — FEMINISM. That’s right, dirty, filthy feminists are leading Evangelical paragons of moral virtue astray. When it comes to men lusting, the typical subject of blame is women. If women only dressed a certain away, Christian men would refrain from wanting to fuck them in the pews during the singing of Just as I Am. Teen Evangelical boys would maintain their virginity — technically, since all Evangelical boys and men masturbate — until their wedding days if girls would hide their sexuality and feminine shape with Little House on the Prairie dresses. Women are viewed as gatekeepers, and it is up to them to protect the moral virtue of weak, pathetic horn dog Evangelical men.
Evangelical women, on the other hand, are ravaged not by men, but by secularism and feminism. Television, in particular, is to blame for Evangelical women lusting after men who are not their husbands.
Jesus came to die on a cruel rugged cross to pay for the sins of the flesh. He would never have thought of using another person to gratify His own selfish desires. How could we?
Is lust a sin for women too? Absolutely. Stop it. Repent. Receive the merciful grace and forgiveness Christ offers.
When Evangelicals talk about sexual lust what do they mean? Lust is desiring someone of the opposite sex who is not your spouse for sexual gratification. It’s looking at someone and saying, “nice, I would like to fuck you.” Thanks to 2,000 years of anti-human, anti-sex teaching, Christianity has caused countless Evangelicals to spend their lives wallowing in guilt, fearing that God will judge or chastise them for looking at someone’s ass and saying, “nice.” Taught that they are hopeless, helpless, powerless sinners, Evangelicals cast themselves on the supposed mighty power of Jesus — a Jewish preacher who never lusted, never had sex with a woman (or a man). As ex-Evangelicals know, Jesus is powerless when it comes to stemming human want, need, or desire. Ask yourself, who wins? Jesus or an erect penis? Jesus or a body flush with sexual desire? Sorry, but Jesus is no match for raging hormones.
Instead of causing all sorts of psychologically harmful guilt and fear, perhaps it is better to consider whether sexual want, need, and desire are normal and healthy? Is it normal for me to see an attractive woman (or man) and appreciate their beauty? As someone who believes in the importance of owning one’s sexuality, I am capable of sexually desiring someone without acting on that desire. That’s what grown-ups do. Forty-two years ago, I made a commitment to my wife to be sexually faithful to her. She made the same commitment to me. This commitment guides how I behave sexually. This doesn’t mean I can’t look, view porn, or watch TV with provocative sexual content. One of the interesting aspects of our post-Jesus marriage is that Polly and I are free to express ourselves sexually. In fact, I find it interesting to see the type of men whom Polly finds attractive. She really has a thing for gay guys. Having conversations about these things is no threat to our relationship. We are comfortable in our own skins sexually.
People marry for all sorts of different reasons. Not every couple marries for sex. I pastored several Christian couples over the years who married for companionship and financial security. One woman had no interest in sex. She was fine with her husband meeting his “needs” outside of their marriage. Since marriage is a contract between two people, it’s up to them to determine the sexual parameters of their relationship. What goes on between consenting adults is no one’s business but theirs.
Human biology tells us that it is normal and healthy for men and women to want, need, and desire sexual intimacy. This intimacy can take all sorts of shapes and forms. As long as it between consenting adults, why should anyone care about what goes on behind closed doors? Evangelical preachers, including female preachers such as Lesley, rage against premarital, extramarital, and LGBTQ sexual activity. Teens and young adults are commanded to keep themselves “pure” until their wedding days. No sex, no masturbation — just lots of praying and cold, cold, cold showers. As former Evangelicals know, the prohibitions against premarital sex failed spectacularly. Why? Sex is what humans do. Allegedly GOD made us this way. Why would God make us this way if he didn’t want us to act on our sexual needs and desires? If having sex is as natural as eating and drinking, why all the religious prohibitions against sex? One word: control. Lesley rages against secularists and feminists because both refuse to be controlled.
And therein is the essence of Lesley’s writing. Evangelical women are vile sinners, and if left to themselves they would fuck their way through the church. The only way to stop this from happening is to control them through fear and guilt. Imagine what Evangelical churches and marriages might look like if women were free to express themselves sexually? Talk about fun times at First Baptist Church! Of course, this is will never happen. The only way for women (and men) to be their authentic sexual selves is for them to exit their churches and the strictures of Evangelical dogma.
Lust isn’t the problem, religion is. Sure, some men and women can and do have inordinate sexual desires. And how such desires affect people personally and the relationships they have with others matters. However, this is not what Lesley and her fellow prohibitionists are focused upon. Oh no, they are worried about women ringing their doorbells while having thoughts of Matt Bomer. They are worried about normal, healthy sexual behavior. Why? The answer is always the same: The BIBLE says . . . For Evangelicals, the Bible is the equivalent of Master’s and Johnson’s books on human sexuality. Think about it for a moment: Evangelicals are governed sexually by an ancient Bronze age religious text; governed by the supposed pronouncements of a God no one has ever seen; governed by the words of an unmarried man who lived and died 2,000 years ago and was never seen again; governed by a man named Paul who, by all accounts, was a misogynist; governed by the sermons of men who don’t practice what they preach. Instead of “thinking” about their own sexuality, Evangelicals conform — at least outwardly — to their churches’ and pastors’ peculiar interpretation of the Bible. The goal? Obedience. Without said obedience, Evangelical churches would empty out overnight.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Twenty-plus Democrat presidential aspirants have been reduced to basically five credible candidates—37-year-old Millennial and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg is one of them, who could get the nomination or be on the ticket as vice president. If the aging Biden wins the nomination and presidency, then one day “passes,” we’d have our first openly practicing homosexual, accompanied by his gay “spouse” Chasten, as president of the United States. Time magazine already put them on the cover as our potential “First Family” (May 2019).
Interviewed for USA Today in an article titled “Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s Countercultural Approach to Christianity is What America Needs Now,” the “devoted Christian” takes aim at our president for hypocrisy; attacks the “religious right”; advocates our Christian faith going in a “progressive direction” and wants LGBTQ proponents to “beckon people onto the right side of history.”
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While engaging in conversations regarding Mr. Buttigieg’s lifestyle and other “gay Christians,” we’ll need to “winsomely and skillfully “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15). Remaining silent conveys support for what the Bible clearly reveals as serious sin before our Holy God. He may be articulate and attractive but the liberal Episcopalian Mayor Pete advances heretical positions to the masses.
Today people can self-identify as anything they want and society airbrushes away what in our heart of hearts we know to be wrong in order to appear non-judgmental, welcoming and politically correct. Majoring on people’s “brokenness” and minimizing their sinfulness, we’re viewing this conduct as “not so big a deal” to skirt accusations of “bigotry, hate speech and intolerance.”
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Whether it’s Mr. Buttigieg or simply people we know, a person claiming to be an authentic Christian and a practicing homosexual is, according to Scripture, a counterfeit convert.
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Scripture throughout forbids sexual involvement in seven areas: with parents, children, another’s spouse, siblings, same sex, animals and dead people. There is not one verse in all the Bible that affirms the practice of homosexuality.
Homosexuality is considered an abomination before God and is classified as immoral, unnatural, shameful, indecent and perverse (Rom. 1:18-25, 1 Cor. 6:9-11, 1 Tim. 1:8-11, Rev. 20:13-14, Lev. 18:22, Lev. 20:10-14).
….
Here’s the deal: Whether a high-profile figure like Pete Buttigieg or an ordinary person, God offers hope, forgiveness and freedom to everyone who repents and believes the transformative and liberating message of the gospel. As His ambassadors we must winsomely [ Greek for smiling really big while you tell LGBTQ people they are headed straight for Hell unless they repent and become heterosexual Christians] and courageously communicate hope through Jesus Christ as darkness increases in our culture today.
Monday, September 23, Montpelier, Ohio native Cory Calvin will be giving a presentation at the Defiance Public Library about his “coming out journey” and success as an entrepreneur. Calvin remained a closeted gay man during his formative years in rural northwest Ohio. After graduation from high school, Calvin moved away, ultimately landing in New York City. It was there that Calvin “first had the opportunity to begin outwardly discovering my sexuality and learning who I truly was.” His goal in life is to help others be their “authentic self.”
Calvin describes himself as a “global trekker, family guy, infamous uncle, best friend, meditator, aspiring yogi, hopeful romantic.” And, he’s gay. And it is the gay part of his story that has local Christian Fundamentalists readying a pyre for Calvin when he shows his wicked LGBTQ face at the local library. One such homo-hater is Pastor Perry Porter. Now, Porter will vehemently object to being called a hater, but his words leave no doubt as to what he thinks and feels about Calvin and his ilk.
(Porter is the administrator of the page, as is Wendell Blackburn, pastor of True Believers Fellowship in Holgate. I was unable to find a church listing for Pastor Porter.)
According to Porter’s “loving” post, Calvin disgusts him. Porter, in other comments, presents himself as an I-love-LGBTQ-people-enough-to-tell-them-the-truth kind of Christian:
I hope you guys think I hate gay people cause I don’t. I pray for gay people. God said it’s unnatural for a man to lay [sic] with man and woman with woman. God is love. But he’s also a God if [sic] Wrath.
Countless such “lovers” have frequented this website over the years. As their comments have shown, their “love” is anything but. Bigots and haters, the lot of them, scurry around the Internet looking for people who live in ways that “offend” them or who believe things they disagree with. So it is with Porter. He doesn’t know Cory Calvin, but that doesn’t matter. He’s G-A-Y, end of discussion. For Porter, LGBTQ people are disgusting.
Evidently, Porter sent Calvin some sort of message informing him that he is headed for HELL unless he stops his evil gay ways. Porter’s words from the Evangelical God were ignored. Should Porter be surprised that his attack was disregarded? Of course not. He knew beforehand that he would be told to shove his “loving” words where the sun doesn’t shine. This is all about Porter taking a stand for his peculiar version of Jesus, not about “reaching” Calvin. Calvin seems happy and satisfied presently, so why would he ever want to embrace the oppressive, anti-human beliefs and practices of Pastor Porter?
Porter believes Calvin and his supporters are “uneducated.” Uneducated about what, exactly? Porter isn’t preaching anything that LGBTQ people haven’t heard countless times before. Fear and ignorance are what Porter is trying to sell, and fortunately, some local Christians ain’t buying. Several people challenged Porter, and here’s how he responded:
I don’t know if you know this, but I am a pastor. And I’ve been called names, Ridiculed because of my beliefs. the Bible says to hate the sin not the sinner and nowhere in this place have I said I hate anybody. I’m just trying to put out the word that God hates gay lifestyle. he says it’s an abomination to him I’m teaching the word obviously. maybe I love those people more than their so-called friends because their friends seem to think well go ahead it’s OK do your own thing. you might as well tell them to go to hell. I judge no one. Every time people hear something from a Christian we are judging. God judged Sodom and Gomorrah when there were people where men wanted to be with men and the women wanted to be with women. and as the story goes when the two angels came to Lot’s house the men were trying to beat down the door and said send out those men so we can know them will know them means the same thing as when Joseph had not known Mary in an intimate way until after Jesus was born.
Porter’s bigotry and hatred are nothing new in rural northwest Ohio. Right-wing religious beliefs and politics rule the roost. For many local Evangelicals and conservative Catholics, Making America Great Again means pushing LGBTQ people back into their respective closets where they belong. “How dare these queers/faggots/homos/sodmites show their faces in public, expect to be treated with respect, and have the same civil rights as white heterosexual Christians!” many locals believe. Oh, most of them will never utter such words publicly, but in the privacy of their homes, clubs, and houses of worship, their anti-LGBTQ views are on display for all to see. Pastor Porter, zealot that he is, just said out loud what many local followers of the heterosexual Jesus believe.
As I read the various comments, I noticed something: it was primarily older people who were anti-LGBTQ. Younger to middle-aged adults were far more likely to support Cory Calvin and other LGBTQ people. The hope for a better, kinder tomorrow lies in the natural death of Porter and his ilk. While it is possible for Baby Boomers and the Great Generation to change their minds about human sexuality — I know I did — most of them will go to their graves holding on to anti-human beliefs taught to them by their parents. Once these generations are slowly culled from the human herd, younger, more inclusive people will have greater opportunities to truly Make America Great Again. My six children and twelve, soon to be thirteen, grandchildren have a golden opportunity to bring fundamental changes to our culture; changes that will lead to acceptance of people for who and what they are — no strings attached. That is, if they survive the Hell of global warming that’s being unleashed upon them due to the ignorance and inaction of older generations. That’s a subject best left for another day.
About Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 62, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 41 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.
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Did you think that the whole LGBTQ agenda was primarily to win acceptance and tolerance from the American society? I think that most of us probably thought that.
Little did we know that gaining acceptance was merely a first step toward the ultimately goal which is evil to its core. Should we be surprised? After all, we ARE battling principalities and powers of darkness (let us never forget this).
The end game of the LGBTQ movement, although possibly not realized by its marchers, but by its leaders is this: Detaching America from it’s original Judeo/Christian heritage and the moral framework which was the foundation upon which we were established.
How will they accomplish this? Legislatively, and as their demands grow, the one piece of legislation that makes every Leftist liberal salivate is “The Equality Act.”
Brethren, of this becomes law in the U.S., initially there will be lawyers in boardrooms brainstorming about overturning this satanically inspired law. But if this is God’s will in his prophetic plan for us, then we will literally be between a rock and a hard place.
The language of the “Equality Act” is such that we will be strong-armed in doing things that our Lord would never have us do. So, we will have a choice: succumb to their demands or dig in our heels and refuse. Of course, the latter will land us in jail – possibly in re-educations camps.
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The LGBT activists won’t stop until Christian and Jewish religious leaders can no longer read certain scriptural passages in places of worship because to do so is considered criminal hate speech. Imagine the state forcing parents to embrace their young children’s chosen “gender preference” or risk losing them.
These activists also will not stop until Christian-owned business, such as Chick-Fil-A, are driven into oblivion. This week, Chick-Fil-A opened its first restaurant in Canada and was met by hateful protest. The angry, hate-filled, and irony-challenged protesters declared that they would not allow hateful rhetoric into their community. Chick-Fil-A doesn’t bring rhetoric at all, other than perhaps asking if a customer would like a refill on his iced tea, offered with a smile. That’s quite the expression of hatred. They don’t refuse service to people based upon religious belief or sexual orientation. But being owned and overseen by Christians is crime enough for liberals.
We’ve got to stand firm against the intolerance and hatred of the Left. In the liberal hive mind, Americans who don’t celebrate and champion the worst of perversions are a declared enemies who must be destroyed. Right now, their aim is fixed squarely on Christianity. They are coming not just for Drew Brees, Focus on the Family, and Chick-Fil-A.
Brethren, to the LEFT, we are public enemy number one. Remember what the Word says in Isaiah:
“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20).
