The day before our wedding on July 15, 1978, I picked up the baby-blue tuxedos at the wedding apparel shop, met my groomsmen, and we caravanned southeast from Pontiac, Michigan to Newark, Ohio. The trip should have taken about four hours, but I decided we would take the scenic route instead. This little detour added two hours to our trip. My groomsmen, soloist, and ushers were NOT happy with me. 🙂
Finally, we arrived in Newark. I had rented two rooms at a cheap motel, two blocks from Polly’s parent’s home. After settling in, I decided it would be a good idea to try on our tuxes — which should have been done while we were still in Pontiac. We quickly found out that one of my groomsmen’s pants was the wrong size. Panicked, we drove to Polly’s parent’s home, hoping Mom could let out the seat of the pants. She was able to do so, but the pants had a single stitch line holding them together — a precarious situation to say the least.
Polly and I got into some sort of argument while we were there. The subject has long since been forgotten, but the picture in my mind of Polly stomping up the stairs is not. Mom said Polly was quite stressed out and suggested we avoid each other until the rehearsal dinner. Good advice.
We had an expensive catered rehearsal dinner, KFC, at Moundbuilder’s Park — a Native American burial ground (Newark Earthworks). The highlight of the dinner was one of my groomsmen, Mike, singing the first two stanzas of the Battle of New Orleans, complete with physical animation:
In 1814 we took a little trip Along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississipp’ We took a little bacon and we took a little beans And we caught the bloody British in the town of New Orleans
We fired our guns and the British kept a coming There wasn’t nigh as many as there was a while ago We fired once more and they began to running Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico
Mike also sang a song about Daniel Boone, you know the song that says “Daniel Boone was a man, was a big man, But the bear was bigger so he ran like a nigger up a tree.” It was the 70s. I doubt many in our party would have been okay with this song today.
Afterward, we drove to the Newark Baptist Temple for our wedding rehearsal. No memory of significance comes to mind about the rehearsal. Polly and I said good night to one another, anticipating with joy and excitement our big day.
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.
In late August 1976, Polly Shope and Bruce Gerencser moved into the Midwestern Baptist College dormitory. Polly planned to catch her a preacher boy and I planned to prepare for the ministry. Polly hailed from Bay City, Michigan, but had spent the previous four years in Pontiac while her father completed his education. After graduation, Polly’s father moved his family to Newark, Ohio so he could begin a new job as the assistant pastor of the Newark Baptist Temple. The Baptist Temple was pastored by Polly’s uncle James “Jim” Dennis, a 1960s graduate of Midwestern. Polly’s parents moved into an apartment after moving to Newark, and it was from here that Polly packed up her meager belongings in a 1972 AMC Hornet and drove four and a half hours north to Midwestern’s dormitory.
I was living at the time with my mother and her drunkard husband near Edgerton, Ohio. The previous year, after a tumultuous break-up with my girlfriend, I moved from Sierra Vista, Arizona to Bryan, Ohio. I spent the next year working as the dairy manager for Foodland, with the intent of going off to college in August 1976.
On the appointed day, I packed my belongings into a late-1960s Plymouth and drove two hours and thirty minutes northeast to Pontiac. I had two goals: study for the ministry and date lots of girls. As this story unfolds, you shall see that the latter goal never came to fruition.
The flirting between Polly and I began almost immediately. I was nineteen, and she was seventeen. While I had dated a lot before college, Polly had no dating experience. Both of us dated someone else for a week or two before our flirtations turned into me asking her out on a date.
Midwestern had strict rules about dating and physical contact between couples. (Please see Thou Shalt Not Touch: The Six-Inch Rule.) We had been dating for almost four months before we kissed for the first time.
It was not long before our relationship took a serious turn. “I love you” first came from my lips, but Polly quickly reciprocated. I had no doubt that Polly was the one for me, and Polly believed the same about that fiery redheaded country boy from Ohio. We spent as much time as we could with each other. Polly learned I loved to talk, and I discovered that she was quiet, shy, and reserved — traits both of us have to this day.
Six months in, we talked about getting married, knowing we would have to wait until the summer of 1978 to tie the knot. (Midwestern forbade freshmen from marrying.) I bought Polly a 1/4-carat diamond engagement ring at Sears and Roebuck for $225. I decided I would ask Polly to marry me on Valentine’s Day. Dating students were required to double date, so I asked fellow rule breakers John and Sandy to go out on a date with us. We planned to seal our engagement with a kiss, so we didn’t want to choose the wrong dating partners lest we end up getting campused or expelled for breaking the six-inch rule.
On the second Saturday night in February, we ate at a now-forgotten restaurant and then drove to a multi-story parking garage in Birmingham — a place frequented by dorm couples due to its dim, secluded environment. We drove to the top of the garage, and it was there that I asked Polly to marry me. She said yes! and we embraced and kissed, sealing our commitment to one another.
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.
It was a ninety-five-degrees in Newark, Ohio on our wedding day. The Newark Baptist Temple was not air-conditioned, but neither Polly nor I paid much attention to the heat. It was our wedding day. Almost two years had passed since we first met as dorm students at Midwestern Baptist College. With hormones raging from Midwestern’s Puritanical rules that forbade physical contact between dating couples, we were more than ready to say “I do.”
Polly’s uncle, Jim Dennis, and her father, Cecil “Lee” Shope performed the ceremony. One hundred fifty people attended our wedding. Parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends from both sides were in attendance, as were members of the Baptist Temple.
Our ushers, Mike and Greg, made sure everyone was properly seated. At the appointed time, my groomsmen, Mike, Bill, Bill, and Wendell, and I walked out the door at the left front of the church and made our way to the front. Remember, the groomsman I told you about in my previous post that had to have his pants altered? He made it two steps out the door before the seat of his pants ripped out. Fortunately, Mike was able to keep his legs together, avoiding showing those in attendance his underwear.
Polly’s uncle, Art, volunteered to take photos of our wedding. He had purchased brand-new lighting equipment to do so. Unfortunately, as Polly and her bridesmaids, Liz, Kathy, Celicia, and Bev made their way down the center aisle, the equipment failed. As a result, we have no live photos of our wedding. One thing was for certain, the most beautiful girl in the world was walking down the aisle, and soon she would be my wife.
Our soloist, Mark, sang three songs: one written by the vice president of Midwestern, The Wedding Song by Noel Paul Stookey, and We’ve Only Just Begun by the Carpenters. Our song choices caused quite a scandal due to their secular nature. Polly’s uncle was livid over our songs, and going forward all couples married at the Baptist Temple had to have their music approved beforehand.
The simple ceremony went off without a hitch. Rings exchanged, vows made, and a kiss for luck, we were on our way.
Afterward, we returned to Polly’s parent’s home for a meal. My parents met hers for the first time. We didn’t stay long. Consummation awaited. We drove to Springfield, Ohio to spend our first night as a married couple, and then to French Lick, Indiana to spend a few days. And then it was back to Midwestern to prepare for our junior year of college. Seven months later, I was laid off from work, Polly was six months pregnant, and we dropped out of college due to financial reasons. We packed up our belongings and moved to the place my birth, Bryan, Ohio. Truly, we had only just begun.
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.
“Regarding the churches you pastored and started, do they still exist today or have they changed their names ? I could not find any of the church’s personal websites. Sorry if you feel I wasn’t trying hard enough. I don’t know what I missed as there are hundreds of ‘google’ links.”
When I get questions like this, I have to consider what is the person’s motive for asking this question. Do they really want to know or are they part of a small group of tin-hat Christians who think that my story is a lie. Yes, even after I’ve been blogging for sixteen years, there are Evangelicals who doubt that I am telling the truth. They question if I pastored when and where I said I did. One man told anyone who would listen that he knew someone who lived in northwest Ohio when I pastored two different churches, and he had never heard of me. This was PROOF, at least for this reason-challenged Christian, that I was lying. While I am well-known in this area, I am sure there are more than a few people who don’t know anything about me.
My gut told me that the aforementioned letter writer was just curious or nosy, so I decided to answer his question. He also asked a question about my mother’s suicide, an offensive question I did not answer. While I gave him a brief rundown of the churches I pastored and what happened to them, I thought I would turn my email into a blog post.
Freshman class, Midwestern Baptist College, Pontiac, Michigan 1976. Polly is the first person in the first row from the left. Bruce is in the third row, the eighth person from the left.
So, let’s get some facts out of the way:
I made a public profession of faith at Trinity Baptist Church, Findlay, Ohio in 1972 at the age of fifteen.
I was baptized at Trinity Baptist Church in 1972 at the age of fifteen.
I was called to preach at Trinity Baptist Church in 1972 at the age of fifteen.
I preached my first sermon for the Trinity Baptist Church high school youth group in 1972 at the age of fifteen. Bruce Turner helped me prepare the sermon. The text I preached from was 2 Corinthians 5:20 Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.
In the fall of 1976, at the age of nineteen, I enrolled at Midwestern Baptist College, Pontiac, Michigan to study for the ministry. I met my wife at Midwestern. We married in July of 1978. In February 1979, unemployed and with Polly six months pregnant, we dropped out of college and moved to Bryan, Ohio.
Montpelier Baptist Church, bus promotion
Montpelier Baptist Church, Montpelier, Ohio
In February 1979, Polly and I started attending Montpelier Baptist Church. Pastored by Jay Stuckey, a Toledo Bible College graduate; the church was affiliated with the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC).
In March, Stuckey asked me to become the church’s bus pastor — an unpaid position. My responsibility was to build up the bus ministry which consisted, at the time of one bus. On average, the bus brought in 15 or so riders. I went to work aggressively canvassing Montpelier in search of new bus riders. Several church members helped me with this task. A few weeks later, on Easter Sunday, the bus attendance was 88. The head of the junior church program met me in the church parking lot and asked me what he was supposed to do with all the children. I told him, that’s your problem. I just bring ’em in.
Several months later, the church bought another bus. On the first Sunday in October, the church had a record attendance of 500. Bus attendance was around 150. The Sunday morning service was held at the Williams County Fairgrounds. We had dinner on the grounds, a quartet provided special music, and Ron English from the Sword of the Lord was the guest speaker. Tom Malone was scheduled to speak, but, at the last moment, he canceled.
The church started an expansion program to accommodate the growing crowds. The next week after our big Sunday, I resigned as bus pastor, and Polly and I packed up our household goods and moved to Newark, Ohio. Pastor Stuckey left the church a few years later. The church hired a pastor who was a Fundamentalist on steroids. Attendance began to decline, he left, and another man became pastor. About a decade after I left the church, it closed its doors, unable to meet its mortgage payment. The Montpelier First Church of the Nazarene bought the building and continues to use it to this day.
Emmanuel Baptist Church, Buckeye Lake, Ohio, Bruce Gerencser’s ordination, 1983
Emmanuel Baptist Church, Buckeye Lake, Ohio
In January of 1981, my father-in-law and I started Emmanuel Baptist Church in Buckeye Lake, one of the poorest communities in Ohio. I was the assistant pastor, primarily responsible for the church youth group. The church quickly grew with most of the growth coming from the burgeoning youth group. On any given Sunday, over half of the people in attendance were under the age of 18. I was ordained in April of 1983, several months before Polly and I moved 20 miles south to start a new Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church, Somerset Baptist Church.
In the early 1990s, the church closed its doors.
Somerset Baptist Church, Mt Perry, Ohio, Bruce and Polly Gerencser and kids, 1985
Somerset Baptist Church, Somerset, Ohio
In July of 1983, Somerset Baptist Church held its first service. There were 16 people in attendance. The church met in several rented buildings until it bought an abandoned Methodist church building in 1985 for $5,000. The building was built in 1831.
Over the years, church attendance rapidly grew — reaching 200 — ebbed, and then declined after we could no longer afford to operate the bus ministry. In 1989, we started a tuition-free Christian school for the children of the church. Most church members were quite poor, as was Perry County as a whole. Unemployment was high, and what good paying jobs there were disappeared when the mines began to lay off workers and close.
In February 1994, I resigned from the church and prepared to move to San Antonio, Texas to become the co-pastor of Community Baptist Church. Because I was a co-signer on the church mortgage and no one was willing to assume this responsibility, the church voted to close its doors. There were 54 people in attendance for our last service.
Pastors Joe Maldonado, Bruce Gerencser, and Pat Horner, Somerset Baptist Church, Fall of 1993
Community Baptist Church, Elmendorf, Texas
In March 1994, I began working as the co-pastor of Community Baptist Church, a Sovereign Grace (Calvinistic) Baptist church. My fellow pastor, Pat Horner, had started the church in the 1980s. The church ran about 150-200 in attendance. (I am uncertain as to the exact number since attendance records were not kept). Horner and I alternated preaching, with me doing most of the preaching on Sunday nights. While I was there, I helped the church start a Christian school and plant two churches, one in Stockdale, the other in Floresville. I also helped the church start a street preaching ministry and nursing home ministry.
This post is not the place to detail the various reasons why I left the church seven months later. Please read the I am a Publican and a Heathen — Part One series for a fuller explanation about why I left.
Several years after I left, Horner also left the church. The church is currently pastored by Kyle White. You can peruse the church’s website here. Horner is no longer a pastor.
Olive Branch Christian Union Church, Fayette, Ohio
In March 1995, a few weeks before my grandmother died, I assumed the pastorate of Olive Branch Christian Union Church in Fayette Ohio, a rural church 23 miles northeast of where I now live. Olive Branch was a dying, inward-grown church in need of CPR. Over the course of the next few months, I set about getting the church on the right track. The church was over 125 years old. I had never pastored an old, established church, but how hard could it be, right? Seven months later, I resigned from the church. Despite the best attendance numbers in decades, the church was increasingly upset with my brash style. It all came to a head one Sunday when one of the elders found out I had moved a table (a cheap Sauder Woodworking ready-to-assemble end table) off the platform to a storage closet. He confronted me just before Sunday morning service, demanding that I put the table back. I looked at him, said NO, and walked away. Three weeks later, I resigned, and Polly and I moved our mobile home off church property to a lot 1/2 mile north of the church. We sold the trailer in 2007 to the brother of a friend of ours.
Joe Redmond took over the church after I left. He has since died. I do not know who is presently pastoring Olive Branch. The church does not have a website. The church is located at the corner of Williams County Road P and US Highway 127.
Polly Gerencser late 1990s, none of this would have been possible without her.
Grace Baptist Church/Our Father’s House, West Unity, Ohio
In September 1995, two weeks after I had resigned from Olive Branch, I started a new Sovereign Grace Baptist church in nearby West Unity, Ohio. The church was called Grace Baptist Church. I would remain pastor of this church until July 2002.
We bought the old West Unity library building to use as our meeting place. None of the families from Olive Branch came with me when I left the church, but over time three families left Olive Branch and joined Grace Baptist. In the late 1990s, we had a church conflict over contemporary music and spiritual gifts. Three families left the church. A few weeks later, we changed the name of the church to Our Father’s House, a nondenominational church.
It was during this time that I began to have serious health problems. In July 2002, for a variety of reasons, I resigned from the church. The church body decided that they didn’t want to continue on as a congregation, so they voted to close the doors and sell the building.
If I had to pick one church that had the nicest, most loving people, it would be this church. After the three families left, things were quite peaceful. This is the only church where Polly and I have the same opinion about the church. Great people, a pleasure to be around
Victory Baptist Church, Clare Michigan
In March of 2003, I assumed the pastorate of Victory Baptist Church, a small, dying Southern Baptist church in Clare, Michigan.
There is little good I can say about this church. I worked my ass off, while the church body, for the most part, was quite passive, In October of 2003, I resigned from the church. I never should have become its pastor. It needed to die a quick death. I don’t mean to say that members were bad people. For the most part, they were typical Southern Baptists. Good people, entrenched in the ways of the past, and unable to see their way clear to the future. The church and I were a wrong fit.
After we left, so did a few other families, moving on to nearby Southern Baptist churches. A year later, the church closed its door.
From October 2003 to April 2005, I had numerous opportunities to pastor churches or start new works. In the end, Polly and I decided we no longer wanted to be in the ministry. All told, we spent 25 years in the ministry.
I know by writing this post, I will open myself up to criticism from people who go through my writing with a nit comb, hoping to amass evidence that will justify their dismissal of my story. There’s nothing I can do that will satisfy people intent on marginalizing and discrediting me.
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.
For Sale Sign in Main Entrance Door, Emmanuel Baptist Church, Pontiac, Michigan
I attended Midwestern Baptist College in the mid-1970s. All dorm students were required to attend nearby Emmanuel Baptist Church. Emmanuel was pastored by Tom Malone, the chancellor of Midwestern.
Emmanuel Baptist Church was a large church, what we today would call a megachurch. At one time, Emmanuel was one of the largest churches in the United States. Emmanuel ran busses all over the Pontiac/Detroit area. During my time at Emmanuel, the church operated 80 busses. (Today, Emmanuel Baptist is shuttered, its members having moved on to other churches.)
One of the bus riders was a young man named Abraham.
Abraham was a walking contradiction. He was a brilliant, crazy young man.
Abraham would walk up in back of people and snip hair from their heads. A week or so later, Abraham would bring the snipped person a silk sachet filled with hair and fingernail clippings. Needless to say, most of us kept a close eye on Abraham.
One day in 1979, there was a huge explosion at the church. Abraham had built a bomb and brought it on the bus to church. Abraham carried the bomb into a restroom and, whether accidentally or on purpose, the bomb detonated. It was the last strange thing Abraham ever did.
The bomb blew Abraham to bits. One man, an older dorm student, who helped clean up the mess, said bits and pieces of Abraham fell from the drop ceiling. Not a pleasant sight.
At the time, I thought all of this was quite funny. “I guess Abraham won’t do that again.”
Years later, my thoughts are quite different. The busses brought thousands of people to the services of Emmanuel Baptist Church. Most of the riders came from poor or dysfunctional homes. Their needs were great, but all we offered them was Jesus.
Jesus was the answer for everything.
Except that he wasn’t.
As I now know, the problems that people face are anything but simple, and Jesus is not the cure for all that ails you.
A homemade bomb found in a church and detonated by the police was probably planted six years ago by a man who died in a 1979 bomb explosion there, the authorities said Sunday.
A maintenance worker spotted the pipe bomb Saturday above a ceiling panel in the basement recreation area of Emmanuel Baptist Church, said Sgt. Gary Johnston of the Pontiac police.
He said the bomb was probably placed there by Abraham Roberts, who was killed in October 1979 when a bomb he was handling in the church exploded and blew out a wall.
Mr. Roberts, who was 25 years old, was a member of the church who had a history of mental problems and apparently made the bombs in retaliation for being barred from worship services because he was disruptive, Sergeant Johnston said.
The police searched the church after the 1979 explosion, but did not find any other bomb material.
The 18-inch, dust-covered bomb found Saturday was X-rayed by a bomb technician of the Michigan State Police before being detonated later in a field.
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.
My wife, Polly, and I attended Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan from 1976-1979. Midwestern, founded in 1954 by Dr. Tom Malone, the pastor of a nearby megachurch, Emmanuel Baptist Church, was known for its tenacious defense of Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) Christianity. Calling itself “a character-building factory,” Midwestern churned out male pastors, evangelists, and missionaries. Women attended Midwestern too, but their educational opportunities were limited: church secretaries or Christian school teachers. Many single female students went to Midwestern to look for a preacher boy to marry. Polly was one such woman. She believed that God wanted her to be a preacher’s wife; all she wanted to do in life was be a helpmeet to her God-called preacher husband.
Both Polly and I came of age in IFB churches. We attended churches that had strict codes of conduct, especially when it came to dating and sex. Physical contact between boys and girls was forbidden. No handholding, no kissing, no embraces. Frequently reminded from the pulpit and in youth group that petting, oral sex, intercourse, and even masturbation were wicked sins against God, teens feared God’s judgment and public exposure of their “sin.” Of course, this didn’t stop teens from breaking the rules. Raging hormones always win over God. 🙂
When Polly and I arrived at Midwestern in August 1976, we were already conditioned and indoctrinated to believe that Midwestern’s Puritannical, anti-human rules were “normal.” Polly never had a boyfriend before me, so the rules seemed normal to her. I dated a few girls in high school and had one serious relationship before arriving at Midwestern. I was definitely the more experienced of the two of us, but that’s not saying much. I was still quite naive about sex. I thought that the rules were just godly older adults looking out for me; that they knew best. Both Polly and I would later learn that not only didn’t they know best, but that their rules actually caused us harm; harm that would carry through into the first decade of our marriage.
Dorm students were required to follow a strict code of conduct. Failure to obey resulted in a student being given a demerit slip. This required a face-to-face appearance at the weekly disciplinary meeting. Students were also allowed to snitch on other students. They could write an offending student up, and then put the demerit slip in a box outside the dean’s office. This led to all sorts of retaliatory snitching.
Virtually every aspect of life was strictly regulated. One time, I got written up for borrowing a unisex parka from Polly. Students were not allowed to borrow from one another. When I appeared before the disciplinary committee, I thought I would use the Bible to plead my case:
[Jesus said] Give to him that asketh thee, and from him. that would borrow of thee turn not thou away. (Matthew 5:42)
That didn’t go very well. I received a stern rebuke and ten demerits.
The most severe punishment was reserved for those who broke the six-inch rule. Couples were not permitted to be closer than six inches to each other. Breaking this rule could result in expulsion. During our sophomore year, Polly and I broke the six-inch rule. I played on the college’s basketball team. Don’t think too much of that. Think intramural basketball. One practice, I slapped at a basketball and severely dislocated the middle finger on my left hand (I’m lefthanded). I had to go to the emergency room to get the finger reset. For several weeks I had a hard time tying my tie for classes. One day, Polly was waiting for me in the dorm common area, so I asked her to tie my necktie for me. Sitting nearby was a couple known for being Pharisees. They secretly turned us into the disciplinary committee for breaking the six-inch rule. Polly and I both received 50 demerits for our “crime.” I had other demerits on my record, so I was close to being campused for the semester.
Polly Shope and Bruce Gerencser, February 1977, Midwestern Baptist College Sweetheart Banquet, the only time we were allowed to be closer than six inches apart.
As I told my therapist today about my experiences at Midwestern she got that look on her face; you know THAT look; the one that says “this is nuts.” We had a lengthy discussion about how decades of legalistic indoctrination and conditioning affected not only me personally, but also my marriage and children. My therapist appreciated me telling her these things, saying doing so gave her better insight into my past and how it affected my psychology.
However the IFB church movement is labeled — is it a cult? — one thing is certain, long-term exposure to IFB beliefs and practices can and does cause psychological harm, and at times, can cause physical harm. Sexual dysfunction is rife among IFB adherents. Is it any wonder? It took Polly and me years to understand, appreciate, and experience healthy sexual practices. It took kicking God, the church, and the Bible out of our bedroom before we could truly enjoy sexual intimacy. It’s not that we had a bad sex life as much as we had a dysfunctional one; one infected with legalism and Bible prooftexts.
As mentioned above, Midwestern was started by Dr. Tom Malone, a powerful orator who was raised in rural Alabama. In the 1920s, Malone attended Bob Jones College. It was here that he was exposed to rigid, cultic, legalistic Fundamentalism. Many of the rules at Midwestern were imported from Bob Jones. And therein lies the danger of IFB theology and practice. Both are like a virus that spreads from generation to generation, infecting everyone that it touches. I don’t blame Malone and my professors for the harm they caused. They too were indoctrinated in the “one true faith.” They did what they know to do, not out of malice, but because they thought doing so was godly and right. One of the hardest things for me to come to terms with is that not only was I a victim, but I was also a victimizer. Yes, IFB churches, pastors, and professors led me astray, causing untold harm, but I also did the same. I passed on to Polly, our children, and the people I pastored the only things I knew about life, faith, sexuality, and Christianity. What I “knew” was ignorant and harmful, but it was all I knew. It took a crisis of faith for me to realize that what I had been taught and what had been modeled to me was not merely wrong, it was harmful, not only to me personally, but also to the love of my life, our six children, and the people who called me preacher.
This blog is, if anything, an act of penance; my way of atoning for my sins. I may not have known any better, but I still must account for my behavior. And in telling my story, others who were swallowed whole by the IFB church movement, will hopefully hear my words and find them helpful.
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.
I came of age in the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement. IFB preachers are known for their staunch, unflinching views on human sexuality. Only sexual behavior between married, monogamous, heterosexual couples is ordained by God. Some preachers believe that certain sexual behaviors within marriage are sinful too: anal sex, oral sex, and mutual masturbation. In their minds, the primary goal of sexual intercourse is procreation. In this regard, their beliefs aren’t different from those of the Roman Catholic Church.
These preachers, in particular, focus on the sex lives of unmarried teenagers and young adults; no physical contact before marriage, including kissing. Some IFB preachers forbid dating couples from even holding hands or putting their arms around each other. Holding hands is considered the first step on the slippery slope that ends in immorality. As a young IFB preacher, I remember telling church teens that no girl ever got pregnant who didn’t hold hands with a boy first. And unmarried young people better not use their hands to find sexual gratification sans a partner either. Masturbation is considered an act of lust, one in which the person is only concerned with pleasuring one’s self. IFB preachers remind unmarried teens and young adults that the Bible commands them to deny themselves. Of course, many of these preachers didn’t practice what they preach when they themselves were hormones-raging young people.
My wife and I were virgins on our wedding day. Two decades of IFB indoctrination and conditioning made sure of that. We were true believers. Several years ago, I had a discussion with two women who were friends of mine during high school. The three of us were part of the same youth group at an IFB church in Findlay, Ohio. During our delightful time of reminiscing, I quickly learned that there was a whole lot of sexual activity going on among church teenagers; that I may have been one of the few virgins in the youth group. This did not surprise me. Now an old man and having pastored scores of teenagers and young adults over the twenty-five years I spent in the ministry, I know premarital sex is common; that all the rules in the world won’t staunch raging hormones.
At the age of eighteen, I had a torrid six-month relationship with a twenty-year-old woman from the Conservative Baptist church we both attended. I was naive when it came to sex, whereas she had already had a sexual relationship with a previous boyfriend. We spent a lot of time together, often taking evening drives in the southeast Arizona desert. We would park along back roads and enjoy the clear, star-studded skies. We would, of course, make out. It’s a wonder that we didn’t have sex, but I suspect “fear” of disobeying God and being labeled fornicators by the church kept us from doing so.
In the fall of 1976, I left northwest Ohio and moved to Pontiac, Michigan to enroll in classes at Midwestern Baptist College — an IFB institution. My plan was to play the field, but it was not long before I met a beautiful, dark-haired preacher’s daughter who would later become my wife. Midwestern had strict no-contact rules for unmarried students. Students of the opposite sex were required to stay at least six inches from each other at all times. No handholding, no kissing, no embraces. “Thou shalt not touch the opposite sex” was the eleventh commandment, etched in stone.
For the first five months of our relationship, Polly and I played by the rules. Breaking the no-contact rule was a serious offense that could lead to being campused (unable to leave the college campus except for work and church) or expulsion.
Bruce and Polly Gerencser, May 1978
Christmas 1976 found me driving to Newark, Ohio to spend Christmas with Polly. For the first time, we were not under the watchful eyes of college and dorm leaders and rules keeping, turn-you-in-if they-see- you-breaking-the rules Pharisees. Polly’s parents were living in an apartment at the time. Her mom asked Polly to go down to the laundry room to get their laundry. I, of course, went along with her to “help.” It was in that nondescript, out of the way laundry room that we had our first embrace and kiss. For obvious reasons, it took us a long time to bring the laundry back to the apartment.
A week later, both of us returned to Midwestern and its no-contact rule. The problem for us was that we had enjoyed the forbidden, and putting the genie back in the bottle was impossible. What were we to do?
Students were permitted to double-date on weekends. Some couples were rigid Fundamentalists, keepers of the letter of the law. Others, not so much. We quickly learned which couples were “safe.” We spent the next eighteen months breaking the rules, fearing getting caught and kicked out of school. Love and hormones won the day. Our virginity survived — barely — until our wedding day.
A week before our wedding, I drove to Newark to spend the day with Polly. We decided to go out to The Dawes Arboretum to spend the afternoon before attending church that night at the Newark Baptist Temple. We had a wonderful day, and as a soon-to-be-married couple, we did a lot of kissing and walk here and there arm in arm. Our passion, for two sexually unaware young adults, was palatable, so much so that I feared we were going to lose our virginity before our special day. We didn’t, but we did lose track of time, arriving home late. Boy, did Polly’s mom give us a tongue-lashing for breaking curfew. Here were were a nineteen-year woman and twenty-one-year-old man and we were being treated like children. We said nothing, changed our clothes, and headed to church. Seven days later, we said “I do.”
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.
Imagine for a moment a passionate, uninhibited couple making love. As their naked bodies writhe in unison, they reach a point of sexual release. And in that perfectly timed moment, both simultaneously have an orgasm. Nothing is better, at least to me, than such moments in life. My wife and I have been married for 45 years. We have made love a time or two. Okay, at least six times. 🙂 As any long-married couple will tell you, not every sexual encounter leads to skyrockets in flight, afternoon delight. Sometimes, the sex is just good or okay. But there are also times when the sex is magical, when it seems that everything is perfectly aligned, leading to the type of momentary experience I mentioned above.
As I was reading a comment on social media from an Evangelical talking about God’s “perfect” timing, I thought about how this notion is quite similar to a couple having mutual orgasms. Bruce, you have a “dirty” mind, some Evangelical is sure to say. Yep, I do. Now that we have THAT out of the way . . .
Most Evangelicals believe that their God not only created the universe, but also controls every aspect of their lives. Calvinists, in particular, preach up the sovereignty of God, believing that everything that happens — past, present, and future — is ordained and decreed by God (including orgasms).
Most Evangelicals believe that their God is involved in not only life’s big things, but also what is considered minutiae, the trivial things of life. According to Evangelical orthodoxy, the Triune God of the Protestant Bible is omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient. God is all-powerful, present everywhere, and knows everything. According to the Gospels, God cares for the fallen sparrow and knows the very number of hairs we have on our heads. He is a God of detail; a God who pays close attention to the small stuff. Years ago, I preached a sermon about the cliché, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” I rejected this notion, telling congregants that God sweated the small stuff and so should they. Nice guilt inducing sermon, but I digress. A cursory reading of the Bible reveals that the Christian deity most certainly cares about our every behavior. The Bible story that illustrates this best is that of Uzzah and the Ark of Covenant. 2 Samuel 6:1-8 states:
Again, David gathered together all the chosen men of Israel, thirty thousand. And David arose, and went with all the people that were with him from Baale of Judah, to bring up from thence the ark of God, whose name is called by the name of the Lord of hosts that dwelleth between the cherubims. And they set the ark of God upon a new cart, and brought it out of the house of Abinadab that was in Gibeah: and Uzzah and Ahio, the sons of Abinadab, drave the new cart. And they brought it out of the house of Abinadab which was at Gibeah, accompanying the ark of God: and Ahio went before the ark. And David and all the house of Israel played before the Lord on all manner of instruments made of fir wood, even on harps, and on psalteries, and on timbrels, and on cornets, and on cymbals. And when they came to Nachon’s threshingfloor, Uzzah put forth his hand to the ark of God, and took hold of it; for the oxen shook it. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God. And David was displeased, because the Lord had made a breach upon Uzzah: and he called the name of the place Perezuzzah to this day.
Uzzah, being a good Jew, saw the Ark shaking, and fearing the embodiment of God’s presence would fall, he put out his hand to steady it. How did God reward Uzzah for his quick save? He smote him — love the King James Bible! — and Uzzah died.
The Ark of the Covenant was an embodiment of God’s presence with the Israelites. The atonement cover (or “mercy seat”) that covered the ark was God’s throne (2 Sam 6:2) and God’s presence was above it (Lev 16:2); it was also the place where God met Moses and gave him commands (Ex 25:22). If someone approached the ark, they would effectively be in God’s presence – a sinner standing before a holy God who does not tolerate evil (Ps 5:4-6) – and would die as a result of their sins. For this reason, God had given the Israelites many rules concerning the Ark of the Covenant. It was to be kept in the Most Holy Place in the temple, hidden from view by a curtain (Ex 26:33). Only the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place, and then only after he had undergone ceremonial cleansing, made sacrifices to atone for his sins and the nation’s sins, and burned incense to conceal the atonement cover (Lev 16). When the ark was moved, it was covered with at least 3 layers of cloth by the priests to protect others from seeing it (Num 4:5-6, 15, 18-20); the priests/Levites carried it and everyone else had to stay about a thousand yards away (Josh 3:4). These laws enforced the concept of God’s holiness: sinful people couldn’t be in his presence, not even the high priest.
Hence, when Uzzah touched the ark, he was profaning it and disobeying God; he should have grabbed the poles used for carrying the ark instead, for that was their purpose (Ex 25:14-15)
God sure made his point, didn’t he?
Another Bible story that punctuates God’s attention to triviality is found in Acts 5:5-11:
But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land? Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things. And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out. Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband. And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.
Acts 4 details the story behind the aforementioned passage of Scripture. Recent Jewish converts were selling their lands and houses and giving the proceeds to the Apostles so they could buy a Lear jet. Verses 34 and 35 state:
Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.
Married converts Ananias and Sapphira wanted to do their part, so they sold a parcel of land, planning to donate the money to the Apostles. Being good Independent Baptists, however, Ananias and Sapphira decided to short God a few bucks so they could take a vacation to Rome. Somehow, the Apostle Peter, who just weeks before denied knowing Jesus, found out about Ananias’ and Sapphira’s greed and exposed their subterfuge. Once exposed, God rained judgment down upon their heads, killing them both. As a pastor, I said on more than one occasion that if God still killed Christians today for lying as Ananias and Sapphira did, churches would be empty. One little lie, and God struck both of them dead. Damn, Jesus, your Father sure has a temper!
It’s clear from Holy Writ that the Evangelical God cares about everything Christians do. Thus, it is not surprising that Evangelicals believe that Jesus sits in Heaven hearing their prayers, making sure that their requests align with his will. And at the exact moment a prayer lines up with the perfect will of God, the request is granted, leading the recipient to praise God’s “perfect” timing.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
Evangelicals believe that these verses teach that there is a time (and purpose) for everything. Evangelicals are known for divining what happens in their lives as God’s “perfect” timing. Meet a man at Starbucks you later marry? God’s “perfect” timing. Find a red Ford Fiesta at a price you can afford? God’s “perfect” timing. Need a house to rent and find one that’s just the right price? God’s “perfect” timing. Receive a call from a church wanting you to be their next pastor? God’s “perfect” timing. Leaving a church to pastor another church? God’s “perfect” timing. Having sex with your secretary in your study? God’s “perfect” timing. Okay, I am kidding about the last one. That aside, Evangelicals believe that whatever unfolds in their lives is according to some sort of divine clock God uses to determine what will and won’t happen in their lives.
Bruce, this is nonsense! Yes, it is, but this doesn’t change the fact that most Evangelicals view God as the controller of their lives (as do many Catholics, Muslims, and other religious people). In the real world, there’s no master string-puller. Luck, and not divine decree, often facilitates many of the events in our lives. Back in my college days, I believed the Evangelical God brought my wife and me together. After all, I had planned to enroll at Prairie Bible Institute in Canada, but at the last minute God — also known as a lack of money — “led” me to register for classes at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan. I planned to have fun dating as many girls as I could, eventually settling on one to marry when I was a junior or a senior. God, however, had other plans for me — a beautiful, dark-haired seventeen-year-old preacher’s daughter. I dated one girl for a couple of weeks, but then I decided to ask Polly out on a date. Talk about God playing matchmaker! Six months later, I asked Polly to marry me, and in July we will celebrate forty-five years of marriage. God’s will? God’s timing? Pfft! Luck, just plain luck, and raging hormones. Two years before meeting Polly, I was wildly in love with a college girl I met while attending a Baptist church in Sierra Vista, Arizona. We talked about marriage, and for six months we had one hell of a torrid relationship — within the boundaries of no-sex-before-marriage Christianity — barely. And then, POOF! our relationship was over and I moved back to Ohio. Years later, I would conclude that had this girl and I married, one of us would have ended up in prison for murdering the other. Both of us had similar personalities: outgoing and temperamental. Was our failed relationship God’s “perfect” timing for our lives? Of course not. We were lucky that we dodged a bullet.
As I look back over my life, I can see luck playing out time and time again. Not always, of course. Sometimes, I can see that things happened because of decisions I made or decisions that were made by others. Who is absent in this survey of my life, however, is the Christian God.
The next time you are having an awesome roll in sheets with your lover, I hope when you achieve mutual orgasm, you will be reminded of God’s “perfect” timing. 🙂 Or at the very least, how lucky you are to have had such a wonderful experience.
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.
1972 AMC Hornet, the car in this story was a darker blue
During the summer of 1972, my wife’s family took a vacation road trip from Bay City, Michigan to California. While in California, their car suffered a major mechanical failure. Polly’s dad decided to junk the car and buy another one: a brand spanking new 1972 AMC Hornet, complete with bench seats, crank windows, and an AM radio.
Dad graduated from Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan in the spring of 1976 and moved his family to Newark, Ohio so he could work at the Newark Baptist Temple as its assistant pastor. By then the Hornet was worn out and Dad was driving a Chrysler. (Polly’s dad was known for misusing and abusing cars. It is no surprise that he wore out a four-year-old automobile. Besides, it was built by AMC — a company not known for quality cars.) The Hornet moved to Newark too, only to return to Pontiac with a new driver: seventeen-year-old Polly. While Polly started taking some college classes at Midwestern during her senior year of high school (from which she graduated second in her class), her first full year began in the fall of 1976.
While at Midwestern, Polly’s dad spent four years working an excellent-paying union job at GM Truck and Coach’s Pontiac plant. His new job at the Baptist Temple paid seventy-five percent less than he made at Truck and Coach, and had no insurance benefits. When Polly arrived at Midwestern with her Hornet, she was on her own. Her parents were unable to pay for her tuition and room and board, so it was up to her to pay her own way. This was quite a culture shock for her, having grown up in a blue-collar middle-class home.
Polly quickly found work, but the wages were poor. Fortunately, she met a redheaded boy from Ohio who quickly caught her fancy. I had much better-paying jobs than Polly did, so I often gave her money for food, gasoline, and other incidentals. One of my responsibilities was repairing and maintaining Polly’s car. Not long after Polly arrived at Midwestern, the Hornet quit running. Her dad told her to junk the car (without providing her with new transportation). I told Polly to ignore her dad; that I could get the car up and running in no time flat. And I did.
The Hornet was a non-stop repair project. I was up to the task, able to fix virtually anything on a car. Those were the days. By the winter of 1976, the Hornet was already showing signs of rust, especially on top of the front fenders. One day I was driving the Hornet down Golf Drive near the College on my way to work. Suddenly, the hood unlatched. The wind caught the hood, standing it straight up, pushing the hood straight down into its rusted fenders and wells. This, of course, caused a lot of damage. Not having any money to properly fix the hood and the fenders, I removed the hood, and we drove the Hornet for several months hoodless. When it rained or snowed, I put a canvas tarp over the motor to keep it from getting wet.
By the spring of 1977, not even Bruce, the magical mechanic, could keep the Hornet running. Polly called her dad to tell him, only to be lectured for not junking the car when she was told to. Never mind that Polly’s parents left her to fend for herself. How was she supposed to get to work or buy groceries? Polly spent the next sixteen months either driving my cars or bumming rides off of fellow students. To this day, I don’t understand Polly’s parent’s indifference toward their daughter’s plight. (I suspect their own financial problems kept them from helping their daughter.) She was naive, as innocent as they come. She had no idea about how to care for a car or manage her finances. Things could have gone very wrong for Polly had it not been for her fiancé and friends.
After determining that the Hornet was no longer drivable, Polly parked it at the back of the student parking lot — a junkyard of sorts for other cars that were no longer usable. Our intention was to sell the car to a junkyard. Before we could, a fellow student named Randy — who had a crush on Polly, a man I despised — asked Polly what she planned to do with the Hornet. She told him “Junk it.” Randy replied, “Can I have it?” Polly said yes, and I reminded him that the car was NOT drivable. He replied, “No problem.” Later that day, we heard a loud banging sound in the parking lot. We went outside to see what the commotion was all about. There was Randy repeatedly driving his own automobile into the Hornet, treating it like it was a demolition derby car.
I can’t remember how many times Randy smashed into the car, but when he was done, the Hornet was a certifiable wreck. The college informed Polly that she had to have the car immediately towed off school property. And that was the end of the Hornet.
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.
After my freshman year of classes at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan, I returned home to my mother’s palatial palace — also known as a trailer — on U.S. Hwy. 6, five miles southwest of Bryan, Ohio. I had come home to work, hoping to earn enough money to pay for my next year of college. I accepted a first-shift machine operator position at Holabird Manufacturing, a manufacturer of cheap trailer furniture. Holabird would later close its doors and file for bankruptcy in 1983. I also worked a second shift job at Bard Manufacturing, a maker of HVAC units. I was attending First Baptist Church in Bryan at the time. One of the church’s deacons was a manager for Bard. He graciously arranged for Bard to hire me for the summer.
I was twenty years old in the summer of 1977; strong, fit, and full of energy. Had I not been, I would never have been able to work eighty hours a week: 7:00 AM to 3:00 PM at Holabird and 4:00 PM to midnight at Bard. I didn’t catch up on sleep on the weekends either. Oh no, weekends were for running around with friends, going to one of the local lakes, or trekking to Newark to visit Polly for the day. That’s right, for the day. Polly’s mom didn’t like me and treated me like a rash she hoped would go away. I would get up early on Saturday, drive three hours southeast to Newark, spend as much time as I could with Polly, and turn around and drive back to Bryan. (Under no circumstances would Polly’s mom let me spend the night.) On more than one occasion, I was so exhausted that I pulled off along the road and slept for several hours. The things we’ll do for love, right?
I followed the aforementioned schedule for twelve weeks. Come late August, it was time for me to return to Midwestern to begin my sophomore year. I packed my belongings into my car and headed in the general direction of Pontiac, Michigan. As I neared Toledo, I decided to take U.S. Route 23 to Pontiac. Ninety minutes into my drive, I exited the highway into a rest stop. I needed to stretch my legs and use the restroom. As I walked towards the restroom, a 30-ish large-breasted black woman wearing revealing clothing came up to me and said, Do you want a date, Hon? Confused, I replied, excuse me? The woman repeated, Do you want a date? I smiled and said to her, no thanks, I already have a girlfriend. And with that, I continued walking to the restroom. As I walked back to my car, I saw the woman walking with a man towards a parked delivery van.
I was quite naïve when it came to matters of sex. My sex education consisted of reading an Evangelical book titled Almost Twelve and six years of locker room sex ed. I knew the fundamentals, but as far as a broader understanding of human sexuality and its darker, seamier side, I knew nothing. And as ignorant as I was, my fiancée was even worse. One warm day in the spring of 1977, Polly was in the college parking lot, sitting in her car — a 1972 AMC Hornet. Purchased new in 1972 by Polly’s father after the family car broke down during a vacation in California, by 1977 the car was already worn out, a piece of junk. This car is a story unto itself, one that I will tell another day. For now, picture sweet, naïve Polly sitting in her car, AM radio blaring, singing along with Starland Vocal Band’s hit Afternoon Delight. I came up to the car window and asked what she was listening to. She replied, Afternoon Delight. I said, you know that song is about having sex! Polly replied, IT IS NOT! The song is about having fun in the afternoon. Slightly less naïve Bruce took the time to educate sheltered Polly about exactly what it was they were having fun doing in the afternoon. This lesson would pay dividends after we married and we experienced a bit of afternoon delight ourselves.
After I returned to college, I told my roommate about what the woman had asked me at the rest stop. She asked me if I wanted to have a date! Why I didn’t even know her. Why would she want me to go on a date? I already have a girlfriend. My roommate laughed and said, she was a prostitute and was asking you if you wanted to have sex with her. Really? I replied. Yes, really. I would receive many more such lessons over the next year.
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.
