In July of 1983, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preacher Bruce Gerencser, his wife, Polly, and their two young boys, aged four and two, moved from Buckeye Lake, Ohio to Somerset to start a new IFB church. I would remain pastor of Somerset Baptist Church until we moved to San Antonio, Texas in March 1994 so I could become the co-pastor of Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf.
Over the eleven years I spent pastoring Somerset Baptist, we owned all sorts of automobiles — most of them cheap beaters or cars given to us by congregants. Every one of these cars has a story to tell. (Please see I Did It For You Jesus — Crank Windows and Vinyl Floor Mats.) One such car is the green Ford station wagon in the picture above.
John Nelson, a congregant who lived down the hill from the church with his wife and four sons (who later would attend our Christian academy), was what you would call a “wheeler and dealer.” John has been running a perpetual yard sale for decades. His father owned a junkyard in nearby Saltillo. Over the years, I bought or traded for cars from John. One such car was the green station wagon. If I remember right, I traded John a Chevy Caprice I had purchased from another church family for the station wagon. Polly hated this car the most of the 50+ cars I/we have owned over the years. I mean really, really, really hated the car. My three oldest sons hated the car too. Let me explain.
The station wagon was a huge car — common of the “boats” manufactured in the 1970s. Personally, I loved big cars — the bigger the better. Polly, however, did not. Not that what she liked or disliked mattered. I was officially in charge of all things auto-related — from purchases to repairs to sales. Polly oh-so-fondly remembers days when I left the house with one car, only to return home later that day with a different one. She never, ever said a word, but I have to think that she more than once thought the Baptist equivalent of “what the fuck” when I drove up with a new rolling wreck.
As you can see from the photo, the station wagon had an ugly green paint job. The car had been repainted by hand by a previous owner. Its paint really made the car stand out in a parking lot, much to the embarrassment of my family.
Typically, I looked at potential automobiles from one of two perspectives: looks and mechanical soundness. This car looked awful, but it was mechanically sound. I drove it all over southeast Ohio (and West Virginia on road trips) until I got bored with the car and traded it for something different.
Polly hated taking the car anywhere. At the time, she thought that the station wagon was a rolling advertisement for our poverty; not the kind of car a preacher’s wife should be forced to drive. Ever the trooper, she said nothing.
While Polly disliked driving the car, it was our sons who couldn’t stand the sight of the station wagon. At the time, our two oldest sons were enrolled at Licking County Christian Academy in Heath, Ohio. A ministry of the Newark Baptist Temple — an IFB church pastored by the late Jim Dennis (Polly’s uncle) — LCCA was a non-accredited school populated primarily with children from middle-class and affluent Christian families. The Gerencser children were among the poorest students to attend the school.
LCCA was thirty miles from our home. A Bible church near our home, Maranatha Bible Church, then pastored by Bob Shaw, bussed children to LCCA every day, but my request to let our children ride their bus was denied. I suspected then, and still do today, that the church and its pastor didn’t want our poor munchkins intermingling with theirs. So, we dutifully drove 60 miles a day to Heath to drop off and pick up our children from school. Later, a girl in our church started attending LCCA. We would take the children to LCCA in the morning, and her father would pick them up after school on his way home from work. He, too, drove a junker.
My sons have told me that they were embarrassed to see me pull up in the school parking lot driving the green station wagon. Other parents drove new or late-model automobiles. Not their preacher dad. Character building? Perhaps. I know this much. Neither of them drives their children to and from school with autos that look anything like the station wagon. Not going to happen. And these days, we drive a 2020 Ford Edge. No clunkers to be found in our driveway. If I came home with such a car today, I suspect the top of my head would be sporting an indentation left from a Lodge cast iron skillet. Polly is definitely no longer passive when it comes to making car-buying decisions.
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 Front of Midwestern Baptist College. The property was eventually sold and turned into apartments and a senior center.
Several years ago, I was interviewed for the Preacher Boys podcast by Eric Skwarczynski. The primary purpose of Eric’s podcast is to expose abuse within the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church movement. Eric and I share a common purpose when it comes to sexual abuse and clergy misconduct in IFB churches, so I was more than happy to lend my voice to his noble cause.
At the end of the show, Eric asked me whether I thought the IFB church movement could be reformed. I told him I didn’t think it could be reformed, and that I hoped to be alive when the IFB church drew its last breath. I want to be the person standing at the bedside with a pillow in hand, smothering the last breath out of a cultic religious movement that has caused incalculable harm. I have seen first-hand (and participated in) the carnage caused by IFB churches, colleges, and pastors. I have talked to and corresponded with countless people whose marriages, families, and personal lives were ruined in the name of the IFB God. The psychological wounds and scars run deep. The widening exposure of abuse within the IFB church movement is a sign that people are no longer willing to be cowed into silence by men who value protecting their reputations and their ministries more than they do victims/survivors. This exposure is in its infancy, so we can expect to see more and more abuse stories come forth in the days, months, and years ahead.
While it is certainly true that some IFB churches and pastors have “reformed,” I have found that the changes that they have made are largely cosmetic. I don’t know of an IFB church that embraces progressive theology, liberal social values, or inclusivism. Big change in “reformed” IFB churches usually means they use translations other than the KJV, use drums, have praise and worship teams, allow women to wear pants, and permit men to have hair over their ears. Real “reformists” now let congregants go to movie theaters, drink beer from time to time, or read books not published by the Sword of the Lord or Bob Jones Press. Why, some IFB churches are so liberal that high school graduates are now permitted to attend colleges other than the ones attended by their pastors. Talk about unholy ecumenicism! Such changes, however, are window dressings meant to give the appearance of a new, improved IFB. Once in the store, people find the same authoritarian practices and exclusionary doctrines. The fundamental problem with the IFB church movement is their beliefs and practices. These things will never change. They can’t. The very foundation of the IFB church movement is the notion of certainty and right belief. Countless IFB churches and pastors believe that they alone have the truth; that they alone are God’s voice and God’s chosen people in their communities. The IFB church movement has always been separatist and anti-cultural. I haven’t seen anything in recent years that suggests this has changed.
Gary Keen, Bruce Gerencser, Mike Fox, Greg Wilson, Midwestern Baptist College, 1978
The only cure for the IFB church movement is death. And the good news is this: IFB churches, colleges, mission agencies, and parachurch organizations are in numerical and economic decline. The heyday of the IFB church movement was 40-plus years ago. In the 1970s, many of the largest churches in the United States were IFB churches. Today, many of these same churches are either closed or are shells of what they once were. From 1976-1979, I attended Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan — an IFB institution started by Dr. Tom Malone in 1954. Midwestern was never a big college, but today it roughly has ten percent of the students it had in the 1970s. Its website is outdated, and current information about the college hasn’t been posted in ages. The spacious 32-acre college campus has long since been abandoned and sold. Midwestern is now an ancillary ministry of Shalom Baptist Church in Orion, Michigan. Its president, David Carr, like his father Harry Carr, is a Midwestern grad. I predict that there is coming a day when I will hear that the college has closed its doors.
Dr. Malone was the pastor of the nearby Emmanuel Baptist Church. A product of Bob Jones College, Malone started Emmanuel in 1942 after becoming increasingly troubled over what he perceived as liberalism in the Southern and American Baptist conventions. In the uber-sanitized authorized biography Tom Malone: The Preacher from Pontiac, Joyce Vick shares the following apocryphal story:
People ask me all the time, “Brother Tom, to what group do you belong? Of what association are you a member?”
I answer, “None.”
They ask, “Are you a Missionary Baptist?”
“Yes, I am.”
It may sound like a lie, but they do want to know what I am. “Are you a Southern Baptist?”
I say, “I am Southern and I am a Baptist.”
“Are you a Conservative Baptist?”
“Sure, I am conservative.”
“In what association book does Emmanuel Baptist Church appear?”
“Don’t have any.”
“Where are your headquarters?”
“I don’t have one.”
“You mean you don’t belong to anything?”
“No, I belong to the same thing to which the church at Antioch belongs. There is only one tie between New Testament churches, and that is the tie of fellowship. Each church is a local, autonomous church within itself. We have God, El Shaddai, and that’s enough.”
I have never felt I was called to preach for anybody, but I have felt I was caused to preach to everybody. I am not preaching for anybody but Jesus. There is nothing so wonderful, nothing so wholesome, as for a preacher to know there are no strings attached.
Thank God, I don’t have to fit into a denominational program. Thank God, I don’t have to get my orders from some national headquarters. Oh, thank God for the privilege of going to God for my directions! (pages 303, 304)
For Sale Sign in Main Entrance Door, Emmanuel Baptist Church, Pontiac, Michigan
Emmanuel would be a new kind of Baptist church: an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist congregation. In the 1970s, Emmanuel had over 7,000 active members, and had attendances on special days of over 5,000. Today? The doors of the church are shuttered, and its few remaining members scattered to other Fundamentalist churches in the area. The same story could be said of countless other IFB churches. Even First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana, pastored by the late Jack Hyles and once arguably the largest church in the United States, is a shell of what it once was. Sure, you can find growing IFB churches here and there, but most of them are dying. Oh, they will still brag about the number of souls saved, but actual attendance numbers don’t lie.
My wife’s uncle, the late James Dennis, graduated from Midwestern in the 1960s. After pastoring a church in Bay City, Michigan, Jim moved to Newark, Ohio in 1968 to assume the pastorate of the Newark Baptist Temple. A church plant by the Akron Baptist Temple (started by Charles Vaden), the Baptist Temple, as it is commonly called, would see exciting numeric growth in the 1970s and early 1980s. However, by the time Jim died, after serving the Baptist Temple for forty-two years, the church was a shell of what it once was. Its one-time large Christian school was forced to drastically reduce its staff. Licking County Christian Academy (LCCA) at its inception was an Accelerated Christian School (A.C.E.) institution. It would later morph into an unaccredited traditional K-12 school. Today, a skeleton crew of staff use prerecorded Abeka videos to instruct students. Some of our relatives currently attend LCCA, as did our three oldest children for a short time.
Emmanuel Baptist Church, Buckeye Lake, Ohio, Bruce Gerencser’s ordination April 1983
Polly and I attended the Baptist Temple for a short time decades ago. I could write for hours about our experiences there — good and bad. We left the Baptist Temple in early 1981 to help Polly’s father, a 1976 graduate of Midwestern and Jim Dennis’ pastoral assistant, to plant a new church in Buckeye Lake, Ohio. I continued to have interaction with Jim and the Baptist Temple into the early 2000s. When our family briefly relocated to nearby Frazeyburg, Ohio in late 1994, people were shocked that we decided to NOT join the Baptist Temple, choosing instead to join the Fallsburg Baptist Church, an IFB congregation pastored by my former best friend Keith Troyer.
Over the years, I have watched the Baptist Temple “evolve.” While the church and its leaders are no longer as dogmatic as they once were over “church standards” (extra-Biblical rules used to govern and control the behavior of congregants), they are still a hardcore, right-wing, King James-only authoritarian congregation. When asked what I think has “changed” at the Baptist Temple, I laugh, and reply, “men are allowed to have facial hair now.” I suspect that this is not the kind of “reform” Eric Skwarczynski is talking about.
IFB institutions don’t reform. At best, they pretty themselves up a bit, hoping to attract unsuspecting visitors. Most IFB churches, however, remain committed to what they call “old-fashioned” Baptist beliefs and practices. They are proud to never have changed anything except their underwear. James Dennis was proud of the fact that he believed the same Biblical “truths” when he retired that he believed when graduating from Midwestern years before. No one should wear unchangeability as a badge of honor. “I have never changed my mind on anything. Bless your heart, my beliefs have never changed! Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and so am I. Can I get an AMEN?” And it is for this reason alone that I am convinced that it is impossible to reform the IFB church movement. The movement has chosen to die on the twin hills of arrogance and certainty. All any of us can do is to help them swiftly meet their end.
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.
Every day, Polly, without fail, texts me when she arrives at work. The screenshot above is of a text conversation we had several years ago.
I love the last text from Polly, “I’d go to hell and back with you!” — complete with two smileys, signifying that her words are meant in a humorous way. We can’t, of course, go to Hell and back. There is no hell. Hell and Heaven are mythical places used by preachers to keep congregants in line. In classic carrot-and-stick fashion, preachers promise congregants Heaven if they will play by the rules, and Hell if they don’t.
While there is no such thing as Hell, it is an apt metaphor for many of the things Polly and I have experienced over the past forty-seven years. We started dating in the fall of 1976 and married the summer of 1978. In July we celebrated our forty-fifth wedding anniversary. Polly and I have had a wide range of experiences as a married couple. Good times, hard times. Heaven, Hell. I can look back over our lives together and see we have experienced a fair bit of Hell in our lives: Poverty. A child born with Down Syndrome. Church strife. Severe health problems. Disagreements with parents and extended family. Loss of faith. We have had extended periods as husband and wife when we wondered if would ever stop raining; if the sun would ever shine again; if life would ever return to “normal.” Yet, through it all, we persevered; and in that sense we have indeed been to Hell and back. No matter the circumstance, with stoic determination, we hung on, hoping (and praying) for a better tomorrow. And as sure as Marjorie Taylor Greene will say something stupid, better times did come our way.
I could list numerous reasons why I love Polly, but the one reason that stands above all others is that when I have descended into Hell, she has been right beside me, and when I emerge from the pit into the sunshine of a better day, she is still there.
Forty-five years ago, Polly and I stood before friends and family at the Newark Baptist Temple and recited the following vows:
Groom: I, Bruce, take thee, Polly, to be my wedded Wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I give thee my troth.
Bride: I, Polly, take thee, Bruce, to be my wedded Husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I give thee my troth.
Till death do us part. The hells of life have certainly left us scarred, but we have endured. Every day presents us with new challenges, but hand-in-hand, Polly and I meet them together. And if we must, yet again, descend into Hell for a time, we know we will make it because we have one another. To each other, we are friends who will be there through thick and thin.
Polly and Bruce Gerencser, Wedding July 1978
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.
Have you ever wondered why many Evangelical churches have daycares? After I resigned in 1979 from Montpelier Baptist Church, we moved to Newark, Ohio to be near Polly’s parents. I took a job as a general manager for Arthur Treacher’s and Polly started working as a teacher at Temple Tots — a daycare “ministry” operated by the Newark Baptist Temple.
Temple Tots was an unlicensed facility. The state of Ohio exempted church daycares from regulation. What could go wrong, right? Eventually, after countless scandals, the state decided to require church daycares to follow the same laws as secular facilities. This led to a flurry of lawsuits, none of which succeeded. Eventually, the state demanded church daycares get a license, and those that didn’t were forced to close. Temple Tots was the last unlicensed church daycare in Ohio when it closed.
Church daycares typically provide services for single mothers and their children. One of the early goals was to reach needy families for Jesus. The daycares were just a means to an end. Daycares as an evangelistic tool were largely failures. Few mothers or children got saved or became church members. Over time, daycares became cash cows for churches — a means to pay mortgages, salaries, and utility bills. Today, church daycares often provide significant income to their churches. All pretense of “ministry” is gone. Church daycares often charge as much as secular facilities do. Employees are often told that they can’t be paid as much as secular daycare workers because they work in a “ministry.” Yet, parents are paying the full rate and churches are getting fat off the proceeds.
A mother will three children might be making $40,000 a year at a factory, but after daycare and travel costs are accounted for, she is making $20,000 — not a living wage. Imagine if churches put mothers and their children first or fathers and their children, for that matter. Imagine if their rates reflected their desire to help the least of these. Imagine charging the Mom of three $100-$150 a week instead of $450. Boy, that sure would make a difference, would it not?
Many local daycares are owned by churches. Sadly, families don’t have any other choice but to use these daycares. Daycare is an essential part of making life better for needy children and their parents. Surely, there’s a better way than pawning our future off to people who have ulterior motives: to “save” children, indoctrinate children, and make buckets of money while doing it.
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.
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.
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.
Been thinking quite a bit this month about why we change beliefs.
So often I release a horrific story of abuse within a church and it seems to have no effect within IFB circles. They simply deny it’s part of a larger problem and move right along until the next case happens, or the next case happens.
No matter how much effort I throw into putting a story together — it can feel like a drop in a bucket when it comes to actually moving any sort of needle.
I’m curious, if you’ve left a toxic church environment you used to blindly submit to, what was the catalyst?
What finally opened your eyes?
I want to be more thoughtful in crafting content to persuade people who legitimately don’t see these issues to open THEIR eyes.
Those of us who are neck-deep in the waters of Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) abuse and scandal often wonder how anyone could still be an IFB church member. We said the same thing about Roman Catholics. Can’t people see the perversion and evil all around them? How can they justify continuing to support these institutions and pastors with their attendance and money?
While some people do exit IFB churches stage left, never to return, most members stay committed to the cause. Some of them will change churches, but hold on to the same core beliefs that fueled the scandals. My wife’s uncle, the late Jim Dennis, (please see The Family Patriarch is Dead: My Life With James Dennis) pastored the Newark Baptist Temple in Newark, Ohio for fifty years. A strident IFB congregation, the Baptist Temple had several major sexual abuse scandals during Dennis’ tenure. In each instance, the scandal was not talked about from the pulpit. Church members were told to trust that their pastor and deacons had everything under control. Polly’s parents attended the Baptist Temple during the time of these scandals. When I asked about what exactly happened — I had a general idea — Mom and Dad told me they didn’t know. And here’s the thing, Jim Dennis was their brother-in-law. He never told them what happened. There should have been a public meeting on these scandals so there were no questions about who did what, where, when, and how, and what the church was doing to make sure that such criminal behavior never happened again. One man went to prison for his crimes, but today? He is faithfully serving Jesus in another IFB church.
Many IFB adherents think that sexual misconduct by pastors, evangelists, missionaries, youth directors, deacons, Sunday school teachers, nursery workers, bus drivers, and janitors, to name a few, is rare. Thus, they use the “few bad apples” argument to justify their continued support of the IFB church movement. Of course, for those of us who regularly report on IFB scandals, we know there are a hell of a lot more rotten apples than eyes-closed believers are willing to admit.
Many IFB adherents believe that their sect/church/pastor has the corner on truth. In fact, they are absolutely certain that their church is the right church; their pastor is a supernaturally called man of God. That is, until their pastor says something they disagree with, then they are ready to leave and find a church that preaches the truth; one that “feeds” them. Such lateral moves are common, with people entering through the front door, and others leaving — often with the pastor’s boot in their ass — through the back door.
When you believe your church and your pastor are the repositories of truth, you are often more willing to justify bad behavior within the church, thinking that “God” will sort everything out. Of course, one thing is for certain, God never sorts anything out. It is up to people of courage and conviction to do what is right, regardless of how it affects the “testimony” of the church. I would rather be known for being the church that swiftly dealt with a child molester than one that covered his crimes up and protected him. The late Jack Hyles, pastor of First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana, upon learning of his son David’s serial sexual predation, covered things up and sent him off to pastor an IFB church in Texas. David Hyles continues to minister in some corners of the IFB world. Why? Well, Jesus forgave him, so shouldn’t everyone else do the same? Hyles refuses to own his past criminal behavior, and has not attempted to make restitution to teen girls and adult women he harmed. Hyles has repeatedly stated that God has forgiven him and that’s all that matters.
IFB churches are often multi-generational institutions. When you are born into a church and a belief system, it is hard to walk away, even when you know you should. When your parents, siblings, grandparents, and in-laws attend the same IFB church, it is difficult to move on to another church or stop attending church altogether. I know several atheists who, for the sake of their families, still attend IFB churches. I couldn’t do it, but I do understand why they do.
I was an Evangelical Christian for fifty years. Thirty-two of those years were spent in the IFB church movement. I attended IFB churches as a youth. I was saved, baptized, and called to preach in an IFB church, Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay, Ohio. I attended an IFB college, married an IFB preacher’s daughter, and pastored three IFB churches and two IFB adjacent churches. IFB blood coursed through my veins for much of my life. I was totally committed to IFB beliefs and practices. Yet, here I am today, an unrepentant atheist; a man labeled a heretic, false prophet, and apostate. What happened?
Certainly, the Jack and David Hyles scandals in the 1980s certainly made me wonder about the moral foundation of the IFB church movement, but that wasn’t enough to make me walk away. The constant internecine wars among IFB churches, pastors, and institutions caused me to wonder about the movement too. So much ugliness, hatred, judgmentalism, and finger-pointing. How can we call ourselves followers of the Prince of Peace and act like this?
By the late 80s, I abandoned the IFB moniker and embraced a different form of Baptist Fundamentalism, Sovereign Grace, and Reformed Baptist. While this move delivered me from some of the worst excesses of the IFB church movement, its poison remained to some degree until I pastored my last church in 2003. After leaving the IFB church movement, I pastored a Sovereign Grace Baptist church, a Christian Union church, a non-denominational church, and a Southern Baptist church. All of these churches had IFB tendencies theologically, but less so when it came to social strictures.
Stepping away from the IFB church movement allowed me to question and doubt. Not big questions, at first, but questions, nonetheless. As an IFB pastor, I was the answer man, not the question man. Congregants expected me to be some sort of oracle, a library of divine truth. Thus saith the Lord? Nah, thus saith Bruce what saith the Lord. Most congregants were infrequent students of the Bible. Were they bad Christians? Of course not. They had jobs, families, and homes to tend to. I, on the other hand, could spend hours a day and days each week reading and studying the Bible. I had the leisure time that they did not to devote myself to God, the Bible, and the ministry.
The first crack in my Christian facade came when I started reading books outside of the Evangelical rut; authors considered mainline, progressive, liberal, emerging church, or even secular. With knowledge came more questions and doubts. I determined to follow the path wherever it led. I met truth in the middle of the road, refusing to back up or go around. This journey ultimately led me to conclude that the central claims of Christianity were untrue; that the Bible was not divinely inspired, inerrant, or infallible.
Ultimately, it was the freedom to ask questions, read books from any author, and wander the path of life that led to my deconversion. Come the last Sunday in November, it will be fifteen years since Polly and I walked out the door of the Ney United Methodist Church, never to return.
Over the past decade and a half, I have learned that arguing with devoted IFB believers doesn’t work. They think they are “right” and you are “wrong.” Dr. David Tee continues to rage against me and the readers of this blog. One claim he has made countless times is that unbelievers have nothing to offer to the world; that they don’t know anything about the Bible; that their words should be ignored. While Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, wasn’t IFB, he was part of a sect, the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA), that had IFB tendencies. That’s why he exhibits IFB tendencies in his writing, comments, and emails. No amount of arguing with Tee will change his mind. None. Until he dares to consider that he might be wrong, there’s no hope for him or anyone else who thinks like him, for that matter.
I need to frequently remind myself that most of the people who read this site never leave a comment or send me an email. I do know that my articles about the IFB church movement are frequently accessed, so I am confident that I am either irritating the hell out of a lot of IFB believers, or my words are quietly making a difference. I get enough email from people who left the IFB church movement to know that my writing is reaching people and helping them to see that there are better expressions of faith than IFB churches; that it is even okay to have no faith at all.
Fundamentally, I am a storyteller. The byline for this site says: One Man’s Journey from Eternity to Here. I tell people, I am just one man with a story to tell. Eric is a storyteller too. His videos and interviews have reached countless people, and, if nothing else, say to people who are struggling with their IFB pasts that they are not alone. It is by these testimonies we should justify and judge the success of our work, and not the angry, hateful attacks of self-righteous, arrogant IFB preachers. If these so-called men of God want to have honest, open discussions, I am more than willing to do so. I have nothing to hide. I should warn them, however: talking to me can be dangerous. Several IFB preachers ended up deconverting after lengthy discourse with me; finding that they were not as “right” as they thought they were; that their Fundamentalist Baptist beliefs could not be rationally sustained.
I don’t evangelize. All I know to do is tell my story and let the words fall where they may. Last year, I spoke via Zoom with an Amish-Mennonite group in Pennsylvania. I had a delightful time sharing my “testimony” and answering their honest, sincere questions. The pastor told me later that none of the men became atheists — no surprise, right? — but they were talking among themselves about what I shared with them. Who knows what may come of our interaction with each other? Isn’t that all any of us can do? (And if you would like me to come and speak at your church, I am more than happy to do so.) 🙂
Change comes when open ourselves up to the possibility of being wrong; that possibly, just maybe we might have wrong or distorted beliefs. Make no mistake about it, change is hard. I didn’t deconvert until the age of fifty, and neither did my wife. MY counselor told me years ago that it is rare for someone my age to walk away from their faith; that sunk costs, family, and social connections make it hard for someone like me to blow up their life and walk a different path (and that’s why I don’t criticize people who can’t do so. To quote the old gospel song, “I’ver come too far to turn back now.” But turn back I did, and I couldn’t be happier. I paid a heavy price for doing so — the loss of community still beats down on me — but if I had to do it all over again, I would. I am a better man, husband, father, and neighbor than I was before, and for that I am grateful. (I talk extensively about these things in the posts posted on the Why? page.) Will your life turn out as mine has if you deconvert? We can’t possibly know. I know people who have paid a heavy price for walking away from their tribe’s religion, often being cut off from their families and even their inheritances. Others have been kicked out of their homes or had their cars repossessed. That’s why I tell people to carefully consider the cost before saying out loud you are no longer a believer, that you are an atheist, or even that you are attending a nicer, gentler Christian church or another religion altogether. (Please see Count the Cost Before You Say “I am an Atheist.”)
Eric asked,
If you’ve left a toxic church environment you used to blindly submit to, what was the catalyst? What finally opened your eyes?
Please share your thoughtful answers in the comment section.
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.
Polly Gerencser, late 1990s, carrying water from the creek to flush the toilets. An ice storm had knocked out the power. Oh, the clothing! But she was and remains one beautiful woman.
Many Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preachers spend an inordinate amount of time instructing congregants about what clothing is acceptable to God. This is especially true when it comes to the clothing of girls and women. Several years ago, Gerald Collingsworth, pastor of Heritage Baptist Church in Mogadore, Ohio, stated in no uncertain terms that girls wearing “immodest” clothing can and do cause male family members to sexually assault (commit incest with) them:
The entire eighteenth chapter of Leviticus is on nakedness. Although most Christians still consider bestiality as being wrong, they no longer consider homosexuality or dressing improperly as being wrong. Many see nothing wrong with dressing scantily. Many see nothing wrong with mixed bathing, yet God calls it an abomination. How many cases of incest have taken place in homes where passions have been inflamed by immodesty among family members? How many boys and girls have been raised in homes that practiced immodest dress and now live lives of promiscuity?
Consider the following graphics from an article written by IFB zealot Daphne Kirkland titled, A Return to Biblical Modesty.
Girls and women are not permitted to wear anything that draws attention to their feminine shape. The goal is to keep weak, pathetic church boys and men from getting boners while in their presence. Girls and women are viewed as gatekeepers, and it is up to them to dress and act in ways that extinguish sinful unmarried sexual want, need, or desire. The goal is no sticky underwear before marriage.
One universally banned item of clothing is shorts. Usually, attention is only paid to what girls and women wear, but I remember a spring day when I was playing outdoor pick-up basketball after working at Arthur Treacher’s. I came to pick up Polly from the Newark Baptist Temple after I was finished. She was a third- grade school teacher that year. I was wearing a T-shirt, gym shorts, tube socks, and Converse basketball shoes. I went into the church building to let Polly know I had arrived. As I neared her classroom, I ran into her uncle, the late James “Jim” Dennis. (The Family Patriarch is Dead: My Life With James Dennis.) As soon as he saw me, he laid into me about my “inappropriate” dress. He sternly and angrily lectured me about wearing shorts, informing me that I was to never, ever again enter the Baptist Temple wearing such sinful clothing. A year later, I witnessed Jim go ballistic at Polly’s parent’s home over her sister wearing slacks to work. She was a nurse’s aide at a nearby nursing home. Her dress was quite typical for people who worked at the home. Keep in mind, Polly’s sister was an adult. It mattered not. As Jim had done with me, he took my sister-in-law to task IFB- preacher-style, telling her that wearing slacks was a sin. Sound almost beyond belief? Yep, but it’s the truth, nonetheless.
Polly, 1977, Midwestern Baptist College, Pontiac, Michigan. Notice the shirt under the sundress?
As temperatures warm in Ohio, it’s natural to see girls and women wearing shorts. Many women find shorts cooler and more comfortable than pants. IFB congregants sweat just as much as the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world, so it stands to reason that Fundamentalist girls and women want to wear cooler, more comfortable clothing too. However, shorts are verboten. Some girls and women will wear sundresses. Polly wears sundresses to this day. Never one to wear shorts, she spends most summers wearing colorful sundresses. Because sundresses tend to show side boob and cleavage, IFB girls and women — Polly included, at the time — wear sleeved T-shirts underneath their dresses. I often find myself smiling when I see Polly wearing a sundress today — sans a tee shirt. Damn girl, that’s some mighty fine cleavage. I know, I am so w-o-r-l-d-l-y. 🙂 All praise be to Loki for breasts!
Many IFB preachers encouraged church girls and women to wear what is commonly called in the movement, Baptist shorts. Baptist shorts are culottes. Almost every IFB girl and woman has several pairs of these pastor-approved “shorts.” Usually, culottes are loose-fitting, especially around the legs. Reaching to the knees, culottes are meant to be comfortable, “modest” clothing. That said, many IFB girls and women HATE wearing culottes. When worn in public, culottes are a blaring, flashing sign that says to the world, I’m a member of the IFB cult! The same goes for shoe-top length skirts or maxi dresses. Polly and I can spot IFB families (and homeschoolers) from a mile away. The “uniforms” and the hairstyles give away their religious identity. Of course, their preachers think this is wonderful. Christians are SUPPOSED to look different from the world, IFB preachers say, but why is it that it is only women who look different; that IFB boys and men tend to look just like their counterparts in the world? That’s a rhetorical question, by the way.
As an IFB pastor, I held to the party line on Baptist shorts for many years — that is, until two events forced me to change my mind.
One late spring day, I drove up from Somerset, Ohio to the Newark Baptist Temple to talk to Pastor Dennis. Our oldest two children were attending the church school — Licking County Christian Academy — at the time. As I drove into the church’s main parking lot, I noticed four teen girls bent over pulling weeds out of the flower beds. These girls were cheerleaders. Typical of IFB schools at the time, the cheerleaders were not permitted to wear short skirts. Instead, the girls wore red culottes. What set them apart was the fact that their culottes were quite tight, so much so that I could have bounced a quarter off their backsides when they were bent over. I thought at the time, I thought culottes were supposed to be modest. These are NOT modest!
Several years later, we gathered up the teens from several churches and took them to Loudonville, Ohio for a canoe trip. The girls from my church begged me to let them wear pants, but being the stern pastor I was at the time, I said no. The trip was a blast. Most of the teenagers spent more time in the water than out. By the time teens debarked, they all looked like drowned rats. As was our custom, I gathered all the teens up and had them sit on the ground so I could preach at them. IFB Rule #6 — Thou shalt not have fun without spending time listening to a boring sermon. As the teens settled into their seats on the ground, I turned to speak to them and was astounded by what I saw. On the front row were a dozen or so Baptist-shorts-wearing girls. Legs splayed wide, I could see their underwear. Worse yet, an afternoon in the water made their T-shirts see-through. I quickly asked the girls to put their legs down and then I preached my sermon. I later told Polly that I no longer believed that Baptist shorts were appropriate for outdoor events. From that moment forward, church teens and women were permitted to wear pants to such events. I know, I know, no big deal, right? Remember the context, and where I was at that point in my life. Deciding to let girls and women wear pants in some circumstances was a monumental decision. As time went along, my views on clothing liberalized, so much so that I stopped preaching about the matter.
In the Gerencser home, change came slowly. Polly was in her mid-40s before she wore her first pair of pants. It had taken me months to convince her that she was not going to go to Hell if she wore them. Today, Polly is a confirmed member of the sisterhood of the traveling pants. Her Baptist shorts? She continued to wear them when working in the garden or painting. Once they wore out, they were pitched into the trash, never to be seen again.
Did you wear Baptist shorts? Did your church permit members to wear shorts? Please share your experiences in the comment section.
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, is the daughter of an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preacher and his wife. Polly’s family on her mother’s side is littered with preachers, missionaries, and evangelists. Her grandfather was a United Baptist preacher. Most of my experience with Polly’s family over the past forty-seven years comes from Polly’s parents and her mother’s close family. One thing that I noticed is that while Polly’s mom and dad, along with her grandfather, aunt, and uncle were gracious, kind, and helpful towards IFB family members, they weren’t the same towards people outside of the family. This always troubled me. Why were they so hesitant or unwilling to help people who weren’t “blood?”
In 1989, our two oldest sons and a girl from the church I was pastoring at the time, attended the Licking County Christian Academy — a ministry of the Newark Baptist Temple, the church pastored for fifty years by Polly’s uncle, Jim Dennis. We would carpool the children to and from school, a thirty-mile drive each way. One day, it was the girl’s father’s turn to pick up the kids from school. Before arriving at the school, Harold picked up a homeless man and brought him to the Baptist Temple, thinking the church would help him. He quickly learned that the Baptist Temple was nothing like the church he attended. The church turned the homeless man away.
Harold wrongly thought all Christians were the same; that the Baptist Temple would treat poor people the same way we did at Somerset Baptist Church. Surely, the Baptist Temple, a Bible-believing, Bible-preaching church, would follow the teachings of Christ, Harold thought. At Somerset Baptist, we fed and clothed the poor and the homeless. We paid the rent and utility bills of people in dire straits, even though Somerset Baptist took in only one-thirtieth the money each year the Baptist Temple did.
Jim and I got into an argument one day in his office over material wealth. We were struggling to pay our school tuition bill. I wanted to find out if there was anything the church could do to help us. The answer was no. I have never forgotten what Jim told me: “it is never God’s will for a Christian to live in poverty.” In other words, he was telling me that I was not doing the will of God. I retorted, “this would be news to Jesus, the disciples, and countless other Christians.” Our meeting ended on a sour note. Our children finished the year at LCCA. By the start of the next school year, I had started Somerset Baptist Academy — a tuition-free school for church children.
Was Jim a bad person? Of course not. He grew up in a middle-class home. He had never experienced poverty or doing without. I, on the other hand, had real-world experience with poverty. He and I had very different life experiences, and these lived experiences affected how we viewed the world and ministered to people. I have always been sensitive to the needs of the poor. Most of the people I pastored over the years were working-class poor or on public assistance. Sure, I pastored several millionaires and upper-middle-class families, but they were the exception to the rule. And quite honestly, poor church members tended to be more gracious and giving than affluent members. As a Baptist church, we believed Christians should give ten percent of their income to the church. It was the church, then, that decided how to spend donations. One millionaire wanted to control where his tithe went. He told me the church couldn’t be trusted with his money. No control, no donation. You can guess how that turned out. Not well. He later left the church.
I co-pastored Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf, Texas in 1994. After returning to Ohio and then moving back home to rural northwest Ohio, we started a new Baptist church in West Unity. Months after we started the church, a family from Community Baptist contacted me about moving to Ohio to be part of our church. I said yes, and began making plans for them to move from Texas to Ohio. A preacher friend and I drove to San Antonio to help them move. I rented a car for our trip, paying for our gas and meals. I also helped pay for some of this family’s moving expenses. All told, I spent almost $2,000 out of pocket to help them move. I sold my firearms to help fund this trip, a decision I deeply regret.
The family moved into the church until they could find employment and housing. The congregation went out of its way to help them. The family didn’t stay. I had warned them about how different it would be for them as a Hispanic family living in white rural Ohio. They assured me that this wouldn’t be a problem. It was. They missed their family and culture. I was disappointed (and angry, at the time) that they left, but years later I understand why they did.
One day, Polly’s mom and dad happened to be visiting our home. Polly and I were discussing moving this family from Texas to Ohio, when Mom interjected, “Bruce, you would give people the shirt off your back.” We just stared at her, wondering why this was a problem. It seemed to be the Christian thing to do; the way we had lived our married life from the get-go and still do to this day. Realizing how bad that sounded and that she had “stepped” in it, Mom added, “not that that is a bad thing.”
Our conversation moved on to other things, but her comments to me were a reminder that we lived in different worlds; that we had different beliefs about what it meant to be a Christian. What I always found odd is that Mom grew up dirt poor. Her parents were migrant farm workers. She had experienced poverty firsthand. Yet, once free of being poor, she had no interest in helping anyone outside of her immediate family. Was Mom a bad person? Of course not. That said, it is hard to read the Gospels and not have a heart for the poor and marginalized. And where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
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.
Bruce and Polly Gerencser, July 1978, with Bruce’s mom and dad
It is a hot July day in 1978. Soon Bruce Gerencser and Polly Shope will be married at the Newark Baptist Temple — an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church pastored by Polly’s uncle Jim Dennis (please see The Family Patriarch is Dead: My Life With James Dennis). Her father, Lee Shope is the church’s assistant pastor.
Bruce and Polly faced much adversity from Polly’s mom leading up to their big day. Polly’s mom didn’t like Bruce, so she had spent the past two years trying to ruin their relationship. She miserably failed, and today was the day when a youthful, immature twenty-one-year-old Bruce and an equally youthful, naive nineteen-year-old Polly would stand before God, family, and friends and pledge their troth.
Bruce and Polly asked Mark Bullock, a fellow student at Midwestern Baptist College, to be their soloist. He agreed. The couple asked Mark to sing two songs: We’ve Only Just Begun by The Carpenters and Wedding Song (There is Love) by Noel Paul Stookey. Both were secular songs.
Little did Bruce and Polly know that secular songs were not permitted at the Baptist Temple. They had a niggling idea that maybe, just maybe they were pushing the envelope with their song choices, but no one asked, so Mark sang the songs Bruce and Polly requested. Afterward, they learned that Polly’s uncle and others in the church were outraged over their use of “worldly” music.
This was their first act of defiance.
Over the next forty-five years, Bruce and Polly faced a plethora of contentious moments with Polly’s mom, Jim Dennis, and the Newark Baptist Temple. Bruce and Polly were Baptist Fundamentalists, but they never seemed to “fit.” For a time, they attended the Baptist Temple. In 1981, they left the church to help Polly’s dad start a new IFB church in nearby Buckeye Lake. Bruce and Polly would remain there until July,1983, when they moved thirty minutes south to start a new IFB congregation in Somerset. The couple would serve God hand in hand at Somerset Baptist for eleven years. Bruce and Polly moved to Texas in 1994, returning to the Newark area later that same year. As they licked their wounds from a vicious experience as co-pastor of Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf (please see I am a Publican and a Heathen — Part One), Bruce and Polly made the decision to not attend the Baptist Temple. Instead, they took their six growing children to Fallsburg Baptist Church, a nearby IFB church pastored by Bruce’s best friend Keith Troyer. Needless to say, this move did not go over well with Polly’s family. Yet another conflict added to the growing pile of conflicts between the couple and Polly’s IFB family. Bruce and Polly were IFB, but it was becoming crystal clear that they intended to march to the beat of their own drum.
Seven months later, Bruce and Polly had their 14’x70′ mobile home moved to Alvordton, Ohio so Bruce could assume the pastorate of Olive Branch Christian Union Church. After a short stay at Olive Branch, Bruce and Polly started a new Baptist church five miles south of Alvordton in the rural community of West Unity. The church later dropped its Baptist name, renaming itself Our Father’s House — a non-denominational congregation. They would remain there for seven years.
By now, Bruce was having serious health problems. After a short pastorate at a Southern Baptist church in Clare, Michigan, Bruce and Polly decided to move to Yuma, Arizona in hope that the weather there would help Bruce’s pain and debility, His sister, married to a cardiologist, lived in Yuma at the time. While the couple thoroughly enjoyed their time in Yuma, the pull of family proved to be too much. Once again, Newark came into their lives. The couple moved back to Newark, thinking Polly’s mom and dad needed their help. Unfortunately, Polly’s parents didn’t want their help.
Bruce and Polly spent seven months in Newark, attending various Christian churches, none of which were IFB. Their unwillingness to attend the Baptist Temple caused more conflict with family. One preacher, Art Ball, wrote Bruce and told him, “Bruce, you know there is only one church in town, the Baptist Temple.” Bruce replied that there was a lot of family water under the proverbial bridge that Art knew nothing about, so, no, they would not be attending the Baptist Temple.
Bruce and Polly left Newark in July 2005 and moved back home to rural northwest Ohio so they could be close to their children. In 2007, they bought a home in Ney, Ohio, where they live to this day.
Over the past fifteen years, Bruce and Polly have returned to the Baptist Temple four times for funerals: the death of Jim Dennis (Polly’s uncle); Polly’s dad; Linda Dennis (Polly’s aunt); and several weeks ago, Polly’s mom. Each visit brought memories of family conflict and trauma. Good times too, to be sure, but no amount of good can wipe away the harm done by Polly’s IFB family. It is what it is.
Bruce and Polly knew Mom’s funeral would be a difficult time for them — and it was, and remains so to this day. Much ugliness happened at the end of Mom’s life; ugliness that destroyed what little relationship they had left with their IFB family and the Baptist Temple.
Bruce and Polly, now forty-five years older than when they recited their vows on that hot summer day long ago, were the first people to sit down in the church auditorium. No one from the church, outside of Mom’s best friend and Polly’s cousin and her IFB preacher husband, spoke to them. Sitting all around them were people who had known them for decades. Not one word of sympathy from anyone. Even the church’s pastor, Mark Falls, ignored the grieving couple. Bruce and Polly knew why, but still, why was there no compassion? That’s for the fine Christian folks at the Baptist Temple to answer.
Perhaps Bruce and Polly’s chickens had come home to roost. The funeral was the period at the end of a forty-five-year sentence.
At the appointed time, Pastor Falls mounted the pulpit and began the service — five minutes about Polly’s mom and thirty-five or so minutes about Jesus. Tis what the aged atheists expected. Bruce and Polly had talked about how to handle the IFB sermon they knew was coming. Both figured they could grit their teeth one last time and get through the sermon. Sure enough, Falls preached about Hell, Heaven, salvation, and death. In a sermon riddled with theological errors, Falls turned his attention to the unsaved in the room. Everyone in attendance was Christian, except for the Gerencser children and their spouses, grandchildren, and Grandpa and Nana. It was clear who Falls was preaching at. In the closing moments of his diatribe, Falls fixed his eyes on Bruce, the outspoken atheist and the pain in his ass, and preached at him. In a split second, forty-five years of trauma came bubbling to the surface. Bruce, sitting three rows from the front, said, loud enough for the bully in the pulpit to hear, Bullshit! Preach at someone else! (As of the publishing of this post, the church has removed the video of the funeral from YouTube.)
Defiance. That’s what Bruce and Polly Gerencser will be remembered for by the Newark Baptist Temple, Pastor Falls, and their IFB family. Why couldn’t we just believe in the tribal deity and play by the rules? Why did we have to be so stubborn? Why couldn’t we just submit and obey?
Previous posts about our IFB family and the Newark Baptist Temple
Sometime this year, I plan to write a series titled How the Newark Baptist Temple Affected Our Lives for Sixt Years. Stay tuned.
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.
