The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser

Tag: Prayer

  • A Challenge to the Thousands of Christians Who Said They Would Pray for Me

    bruce healing

    In 1 Kings 18, we find the Prophet Elijah doing battle with the prophets of Baal. No need to tell the whole story. It’s enough for me to say Elijah won the battle and slaughtered all of the prophets of Baal. Elijah prayed one prayer, and BOOM! God sent fire from Heaven! Awesome, right? In John 14, Jesus told his followers that they would one day do greater works than he did. Surely this is a promise for believers today, too. Surely through the power of the Holy Spirit they can do great works. If this is so — and the Bible says it is — I want to propose a surefire way for God to heal me and restore me to the health of an active, athletic twenty-five-year-old man. Are you ready, Christians?

    I have been blogging since 2007. Over the past twenty years, thousands of Christians have told me “I am praying for you!” Monday, I had melanoma surgically removed from my neck. My nurse was a friendly young woman; a delight to talk to. She was chatty, and so was I. She learned that I had recently been diagnosed with severe axonal neuropathy, leading to severe nerve pain in my legs. She replied, “well I sure will be praying for you.” I smiled, and said, “Thank you. I appreciate it.” No need to offend, but I sure have heard that line a few thousand times, both as a Christian and as an unbeliever.

    As I was deeply meditating on prayer, God sent me a message straight from throne room of God. The Holy One said that I would be completely healed, right down to my hemorrhoids, IF the following happened:

    On April 1, 2026, at 4:20 PM, God is calling every Christian who promised to pray for me to gather together in the Ney Park for a time of worship and prayer. Perhaps, my former best friend, Pastor Keith Troyer, will come and lead this testimony to God’s love, forgiveness, and healing. Maybe all my former colleagues in the ministry who said they would pray for me will be in attendance too. Throw in Dr. David Tee, John, Revival Fries and other “praying Christians,” why, these mighty prayer warriors will surely deliver me from my afflictions; and if they do, I promise to serve Jesus the remaining days of my life. I will even record a YouTube video testimony of my healing. Total healing, not just my hemorrhoids.

    Surely, if a thousand or more praying Evangelicals — the one true religion — show up at the Ney Park on April 1, 2026 at 4:20 PM, God will hear their prayers and heal me, right? Right? Thousands of singular prayers have already been uttered on my behalf, without success. Maybe corporate prayers are required for success, but I have been lifted up in prayer by numerous churches over the years. Are their unified prayers not enough? All this praying, and no salvation or healing. What’s up with that?

    I will await healing on April 1, 2026. Until then, I have a CT scan of my abdomen and pelvis scheduled, along with an appointment with yet another neurologist in Toledo. I have faith, but my fingers are crossed.

    You were once a Christian. You know how we lied when we said “I’ll pray for you.” We meant well, but quickly moved on to other needs. Of the thousands of people who said they would pray for me, it is doubtful that many of them ever did beyond a prayer for me while I was on their mind. If only they had prayed for me every day, God might have healed me.

    Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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.

    Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

    You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

  • My Prayer for Healing

    jesus heal me

    Gallows humor ahead . . .

    In a prolonged fit of pain and agony, I cried into the void, “Please help me.”

    Jesus replied, after 3,666,669 prayers, “I’m here my son . . .”

    Loki chimes in, “Silly boy. No one is available to take your call. At the sound of the tone die.”

    Loki turns to his younger brother Jesus and says, “Another one healed in your glorious wonderful name, Jesus. Just remember death cures everything. Why heal Bruce when we just can wait for him to die?”

    What an awesome God, right?

    Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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.

    Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

    You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

  • Why It Upsets Me When Evangelicals Say “I’m Praying for You”

    prayer

    Why do I get upset when Evangelicals (and other Christians) say, “I’m praying for you?”

    First, Evangelicals who say this to me deliberately violate the clear teaching of the Bible. Did Jesus not say:

    Beware of practicing your righteousness before others in order to be seen by them, for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

    So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

    And whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, so that they may be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward.  But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6:6 NRSV)

    These verses seem clear, without ambiguity. Jesus commanded his followers to give and pray in secret. Why, then, do so many Evangelicals think it important for them to tell me that they are praying for me?

    Second, I ask Evangelical readers in the comment guidelines to not leave “I’m praying for you” comments. Unlike some readers of this blog, I find no value or purpose in telling people you are praying for them. God is a myth, and so is “answered” prayer. I view prayer in the same light as I do God — a waste of time. It’s fine if Christians think differently, but understand that telling me that you are beseeching the God of the Bible on my behalf does little more than irritate me. Why do something that you KNOW will irritate the hell out of me? Especially since my knowing that someone is praying for me plays no part in whether God answers said prayer.

    Third, praying for me is literally the least you can do for me, no different than politicians who offer up “thoughts and prayers” when there is another mass casualty shooting. Countless Christian prayers will be offered up for the dead. Why? They are dead. Instead of prayers, how about actually doing something that will make a meaningful difference?

    Thousands of people have allegedly prayed for me. I say allegedly because I know Evangelicals are famous for lying about praying for others, or they briefly pray one time and move on. Instead of doing something that will tangibly improve my life, Evangelicals choose the one thing — prayer — that does nothing for me.

    I have been blogging for seventeen years. I can count on two fingers the number of Evangelicals who have done something material for me; something that would make a difference in my life. The two people I have in mind sent me money to help with my needs. Is this not the essence of loving your neighbor as yourself? I am known for being a big tipper when we go out to eat. During the holidays, it is not uncommon for me to leave a tip equal to the bill total. I do this for one reason; to be a blessing and help to others — no strings attached. I should add that these two people — both preachers — have left Christianity. Beware of giving money to Bruce Gerencser. It could cause you to lose your faith. 🙂

    One of my biggest beefs with Evangelical churches is that they rarely, of ever, do anything just to be a help to others. Years ago, an Evangelical preacher named Iggy left a comment detailing all the things he and his church did to be a blessing to others. I dared to question the motivations behind these acts of love. Boy, did we have a digital fight. 🙂 I concluded that the goal was not helping others as much as it was advertising the church’s and pastor’s name.

    Will this post keep Evangelicals from saying they are praying for me? Silly boy, of course not. Evangelicals gonna do what Evangelicals do.

    Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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.

    Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

    You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

  • Is Answered Prayer Evidence for the Existence of God?

    unaswered prayer

    Every day, millions of Christians pray to the God of the Bible, believing that he hears and answers their prayers. Today, I heard an Evangelical man say that he KNOWS God answers his prayers. How does he know this? Well, his story went something like this. He was having a lot of trouble in his life. Feeling helpless and hopeless, the man cried out to God. You know what happened next? Various people came to him offering their help. See! God answered his prayer! Really? Are there any other explanations for his alleged deliverance? How could he possibly know God answered his prayers? Did God send him a return receipt, “proving” that God heard his prayer? The man never says. In his mind, good things happening to him are evidence for the existence of God, even though the “good” done to and for him were solely performed by mere mortals.

    This bad thinking is common among Evangelical Christians. Instead of seeing the hands of their fellow humans, they see the hand of God. They “see” God because they “see” God everywhere. God is the sum of all our experiences, according to Evangelicals. We MUST pray to God because he controls our lives. He has in his hands the keys of life and death. Or so it goes, anyway.

    Christians have far more misses — unanswered prayers — than they do hits — answered prayers. However, they don’t pay attention to the misses. They might pray one hundred prayers that go unanswered, but let them pray a prayer that God allegedly answered, and there ya have it — God is real!! Never mind the fact that this God ignores them ninety-nine percent of the time. In any other setting but Christianity, a person would be fired if they only correctly performed their work one percent of the time.

    Matthew 7:7-11 (NSRV), Jesus said:

    Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asked for bread, would give a stone? Or if the child asked for a fish, would give a snake? If you, then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

    According to Jesus:

    • Ask (pray) and it will be given to you
    • Search and you will find
    • Knock and the door will be opened for you
    • Everyone who asks receives
    • Everyone who searches finds
    • Everyone who knocks will find doors opened to him
    • God will give good things to everyone who asks (prays) him

    Dear Christian, I ask you, is this how your prayer life works? I suspect not. Most Christians futilely spend their lives praying unanswered prayers, searching and not finding, and knocking on doors that never open.

    In Luke 17:5 (NRSV), Jesus said:

    The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

    In Matthew 17:19-20 (NRSV), we have the disciples asking Jesus why they couldn’t cast a demon out of a person:

    Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast it out?” He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.

    Jesus told his disciples that if they had faith the size of a mustard seed that they could say to a mountain, “move from here to there,” and it would happen. According to Jesus, nothing is impossible for his followers. Such a minute faith, yet mighty works are done! Or so the thinking goes, anyway. I’ve yet to see a Christian move a mountain. How about you? It seems, at least to me, that God doesn’t do what he promises. Most Christian prayers are attributable to human intervention, and not God. The few that are not or are unexplainable aren’t enough to justify the existence of a prayer-answering deity.

    Yesterday, floods ravaged Texas, leading to scores of injuries and deaths. Numerous children at a Christian youth camp were killed. Where was God? Surely Christians prayed for the safety and deliverance of these children, yet God ignored them. What does this tell us about prayer and God?

    Dear Christian, I ask you, when was the last time you prayed for a tree to be uprooted and cast into the sea, and it happened? When was the last time God supernaturally answered your prayer? Not the superficial minutia of life. I’m talking about petitions that require a supernatural explanation

    Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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.

    Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

    You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

  • Did Jesus Talk to Himself?

    atheist prayer

    The Trinity poses interpretive problems for Evangelical Christians. Jesus is the second person of the Godhead — fully God, fully man. There was never a moment when Jesus walked upon the face of the earth that he was not God. This fact leads to contradictions and discrepancies when interpreting the gospel accounts recorded in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

    In John 10, we find Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. In verse 41-42, Jesus prayed;

    Father, I thank you for having heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.

    In Luke 23, we have the crucifixion of Jesus. In verses 34,46, Jesus prays:

    Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. . . Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.

    In the gospel of John, chapter 17, Jesus prays:

    Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you,  since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.  And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth by finishing the work that you gave me to do. So now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had in your presence before the world existed. I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.  Now they know that everything you have given me is from you,  for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them.  And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.  I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.  Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.  As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth. I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word,  that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.  Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them.”

    If God is a triune being, what are we to make of these prayers? If God, the Father, and God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit, are one, this necessarily means that Jesus is praying to himself. Outside of providing an example for his followers, there’s no possible reason for Jesus to pray. He’s the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. He knows what he is going to pray before he prays and he knows what the answer will be before he utters a word. His earthly birth, life, and death were predetermined before the world began.

    Of course, a better answer might be to say that Jesus was not God; that he was a son of God, a prophet, or itinerant Jewish preacher. As a human being, Jesus didn’t know what would happen in the future, so he was genuinely praying to discern the will of the Father.

    Perhaps the best answer is that Jesus was known as the preacher-who-talks-to-himself. Or maybe people wondered if he was mentally ill or the eccentric son of a carpenter. Regardless, most first century people didn’t buy the notion that he was God incarnate. Jesus spent three years preaching that the kingdom is at hand. For all his preaching and miracles, most people rejected him, including members of his family. For all that Jesus allegedly did, he made very little impact on people during his lifetime.

    When you see someone on a street corner or on a bus talking to themselves, what do you think? Should we view Jesus differently? I suspect that if some of us saw Jesus today “praying,” we would try to help him, as we would a drug addict or a homeless person.

    Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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.

    Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

    You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

  • Church Prayer Chains: How Many Prayers Does a Healing Make?

    selective focus photoraphy of chains during golden hour
    Photo by Joey Kyber on Pexels.com

    Recently, Heidi left the following comment (slightly edited):

    I love coming up with my own practical deconstructions, such as: Why does God care more about popular people? Every time there’s a prayer chain for someone, isn’t it just an admission that God is keeping a tally, and once the prayee is sufficiently supported by the numbers, then that person will be healed? I guess the person with few friends is out of luck where God is concerned.

    For the uninitiated, a “prayer chain” is a group of Christian church members who agree to pray for a person or circumstance when the chain is activated either by the pastor or whoever is in charge of it. Typically, a church member calls the pastor with a prayer request, asking others to pray for him, or a member is made aware of a “need” someone has and passes that need along to the pastor or whoever is in charge of the prayer chain. The pastor then calls one or more people on the chain, who then call one or more people until everyone on the prayer chain knows about the need. Sometimes, one person handles the chain activation, calling everyone on the list. The goal, of course, is to get as many people as possible begging God to save/heal/deliver someone or meet some sort of need. The thinking is that the more people who bug God in prayer, the more likely it is that God will favorably grant the prayer request.

    The Bible diverges in two directions when it comes to God answering prayers. On one hand, the Bible portrays God as an instantaneous prayer-answering deity. Ask and it shall be given to you, right? Most Christians learn early on that God rarely, if ever, answers prayers immediately. Believers are encouraged to have faith, pleading with God without ceasing to answer their prayers. These prayers rarely, if ever, get answered either. Christians love to trumpet to the world that their peculiar deity answers millions, billions, and gazillions of prayers every day, but when pressed for evidence for their claim, believers turn deaf and dumb.

    When my partner and I deconverted seventeen years ago, one of the first things we wrestled with was our past prayers. Both of us were praying people — morning, noon, night, before meals, at church, in the car, together, and alone. I suspect between the two of us, we uttered over 100,000 prayers for ourselves and other people. Yet, when we gave an honest accounting of our prayers, we concluded that only a handful of prayers couldn’t be explained naturally. Most of our prayers went unanswered, and those we thought were answered by God were actually answered by self, family, church members, or friends. Virtually every answered prayer was of human origin. And the few that weren’t were not enough to convince us that the God of the Bible exists, that he is personally involved in our lives, and that he answers our prayers. What we were left with was a few experiences we could not explain. Live long enough and you too will have similar experiences; things you can’t explain.

    Heidi raises an excellent point about prayer chains. The same can be said for corporate prayer meetings. Evangelical churches often set aside one day a week for members to gather together and corporately pray. I grew up in an era when Baptist churches typically held prayer meetings on Wednesday or Thursday evenings. Some churches take praying seriously, spending an hour or more beseeching God, while others give lip service to the notion of a prayer meeting, taking requests from the congregation and then offering a single prayer, usually given by the pastor, for the people and needs mentioned. Sadly, most church prayer meeting nights are long on gossip and short on prayer.

    The thinking goes, that the more people who pray for a person or need the more likely it is that God will answer their prayers. God is waiting and willing to answer prayer, but only if enough prayers come into Prayer Central. Picture God sitting in Heaven with a scorecard, putting a “I” on the card every time a Christian prays for Sister Bertha’s gallbladder or Brother Ernie’s hemorrhoids. Once the prescribed number of “I” are marked on the scorecard, God answers the prayer in the affirmative. As Heidi notes, pity the poor person who has few friends or isn’t well known. They never get healed because they don’t have enough people praying for them.

    Why does God operate this way? Why doesn’t he help and heal people the moment they ask? Why does praying seem to be an exercise in futility; a practice that may comfort people, but rarely brings healing and deliverance? As with most things, Christians only count the “hits’ when deciding whether God answers prayers, ignoring the “misses” — which are statistically far more common than affirmatively answered prayers.

    Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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.

    Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

    You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

  • Dr. David Tee Responds to My Post About Jesus Abandoning Hospitalized Woman

    woman-lying-on-hospital-crying-praying-to-jesus-with-raised

    Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen, took issue with a recent post of mine:

    When it comes to spiritual issues and Christians, unbelievers develop some weird and absurd views. They do not grasp the subtleties involved with God’s answer to prayer. Take for example this post Jesus Abandons Christian Woman in Hospital, Leaving Her to Suffer Horrific Pain [by Bruce Gerencser]:

    Over and over and over again, for two hours, an elderly Charismatic Christian woman in a hospital bed near mine, lay on her bed with hands extended to the ceiling, pleading for Jesus/God to come to her and make his presence known….

    Fortunately, after two hours of crying out to Jesus, he finally showed up! Just kidding. What showed up was a nurse with a syringe filled with high-powered narcotics. Soon, the woman fell asleep, ending her pleas to God. When she awoke, family and medical staff alike comforted her so she would no longer hysterically cry out for an imaginary pain-alleviating deity. Her suffering was alleviated, not by God, but by medically trained and compassionate human beings.

    It is obvious that unbelievers will not see God or Jesus behind the kind act of the nurse. They only look on the surface of events and do not look for the real action taking place behind that surface view.

    Unbelievers fail to realize that God uses people thus a human would be sent with the right medication to alleviate the woman’s pain. Given the fact that deaths due to medical malp[practice [sic] are abundant, the woman receiving the right dosage of the right medicine is an act of God answering her prayers.

    Why would it take so long? Well, real life does get in the way of God answering prayers. One reason is that the nurses resisted God’s leading and disobeyed. Another is that they came when they were free as they had other patients to minister aid to and other practical and real reasons.

    It is not that God abandoned this woman but that he answers in his time. Unfortunately, according to the author of that post, the woman’s faith was being undermined by family and medical staff. That is another reason God’s aid was delayed.

    The post goes on to denigrate God and the Bible but that is also par for the ocurse [sic] as unbelievers never see God in any result of prayer. Not because they do not believe but because they do not look for God’s behind the scenes action.

    According to Thiessen, I failed to see “God or Jesus behind the kind act of the nurse.” How could I, or anyone else, for that matter, see God or Jesus behind the nurse caring for this woman? Thiessen makes a claim for which he provides no evidence. Thiessen claims that I just took a “surface” view of the situation. How could I have done otherwise? I have no tool available to me that allows me to detect Jesus/God, so I make judgments based on what I see and hear. If God is the sovereign of the universe and hears every believer’s prayer, why did it take him two hours to show up? Jesus could have immediately revealed himself to her or alleviated her pain, but he didn’t. Instead, she lay on her bed writhing in pain, pleading for Jesus to make an appearance and alleviate her suffering.

    Thiessen asserts, without evidence, that the woman finally receiving the right dose of narcotics was “an act of God answering her prayers.” How could he possibly know this? It is far more likely the charge nurse had to get in contact with the doctor before giving her pain meds and this took some time to accomplish or she had already received pain meds and it was too soon for more.

    Thiessen suggests that God’s tardiness (not explaining how God could be tardy or absent when he is ever present) was due to “the nurses resisted God’s leading and disobeyed” or “they had other patients to minister aid to and other practical and real reasons.” Again, Thiessen provides no evidence for his claims. He is just making shit up as he goes, trying to make God look good. I was two beds away from this woman in a ward when the events detailed in my post happened. She had nursing staff in her room the whole time. My nurse, an RN, spent thirty minutes with the woman, trying to comfort and settle her down. She had plenty of human help, but supernatural deliverance was nowhere to be found.

    Thiessen claims that the woman’s family and her nurses undermined her faith, and that’s why pain relief was delayed. I have no idea how he came to this conclusion. Besides, what kind of God withholds pain relief from one of his followers because of what others did? Why should she be punished for what others do (not that they did what Thiessen alleges)?

    Thiessen concludes his post by saying “Unbelievers never see God in any result of prayer. Not because they do not believe but because they do not look for God’s behind-the-scenes action.” Saying God answered a prayer is a claim. If you want me to believe a supernatural claim then you must provide sufficient evidence for your claim. Thiessen, of course, doesn’t do this. As a Fundamentalist presuppositionalist, he believes that his claims are self-evident; and that unbelievers are deliberately deaf and blind to what God is doing in the world. Sure . . . but if Thiessen wants me to accept his claims, he going to have to do more than quote Bible verses, share personal experiences, or make bald assertions for which he provides no evidence. I am not going to take his word for it, and neither should anyone else.

    Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 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.

    Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

    You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

  • Jesus Abandons Christian Woman in Hospital, Leaving Her to Suffer Horrific Pain

    woman praying

    Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!

    I see your face, Jesus!

    I see you, Jesus!

    Come to me, Jesus!

    I see your face, Jesus!

    Over and over and over again, for two hours, an elderly Charismatic Christian woman in a hospital bed near mine, lay on her bed with hands extended to the ceiling, pleading for Jesus/God to come to her and make his presence known. She had just had surgery and was in a tremendous amount of pain. Pain medications were ineffective, so she turned to Jesus — the ultimate pain reliever. As a former devout Evangelical, I understand the woman’s pleas. As a pastor suffering from chronic illness and pain, I daily pleaded with God to deliver me from my suffering; or at the very least lessen my pain so I could sleep and do the work of the ministry. Alas, not one of my prayers was answered by God. At the time, I believed that if God didn’t answer my prayers, he was using my pain and suffering to either punish me, correct me, or for his glory. God always got a free pass.

    Fortunately, after two hours of crying out to Jesus, he finally showed up! Just kidding. What showed up was a nurse with a syringe filled with high-powered narcotics. Soon, the woman fell asleep, ending her pleas to God. When she awoke, family and medical staff alike comforted her so she would no longer hysterically cry out for an imaginary pain-alleviating deity. Her suffering was alleviated, not by God, but by medically trained and compassionate human beings.

    I genuinely felt sorry for the woman, knowing that Jesus was not going to show himself to her; that all the prayers, Bible verses, and worship were no match for severe pain; and that narcotics are the best tool medical professionals have in their toolbox to alleviate suffering.

    I understand why Evangelicals turn to Jesus when suffering, but he is little more than a placebo. Jesus has never made a pain go away. He has no power to palliate suffering. How could he? Jesus is dead. Sure, prayer/meditation/positive mental attitude/mindfulness can help reduce pain; they are, after all, placebos. If you want to put this to the test, the next time you have surgery, ask the surgeon to do it without anesthesia or ask him to NOT give you narcotic pain meds post-surgery. None of us, I suspect, is willing to do this, even Holy Ghost-filled Christians. When we are in pain, we want the best post-surgery pain relievers. We want pain relievers because they work.

    Nurses kept this woman sedated for the duration of my stay. I am grateful she found relief from her pain, even if her God had nothing to do with it.

    Bruce Gerencser, 69, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 48 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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