I grew up in a dysfunctional Evangelical home. We attended church every time the doors were open, read our Bibles, invited our friends and neighbors to church, and practiced the Christian art of praying. I want to focus on the art of praying in this post. I hope what I write will resonate with readers, and provoke their own thoughts about their past prayer experiences.
As a child, I was taught to pray every night before I went to bed. The first prayer I remember praying went like this:
Dear God,
Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my Soul to keep, If I should die before I ‘wake, I pray the Lord my Soul to take.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen
As I grew older, my prayers became more extemporaneous. I would confess my sins, thank God for saving me from my sin, thank God for my parents, family, pastor, church, pray for the missionaries and lost sinners, and finish off my prayers with a few personal requests. Still waiting for that new Schwinn 3-speed bike with a banana seat and sissy bar, Lord. As a teenager, my prayers became more elaborate, often taking minutes to recite. I wanted God to know I was serious about my faith; that I was serious about making my petitions and requests known to God. In my late teens, as I became more involved with girls, I would ask God to keep me morally pure. Two serious relationships, one at eighteen and the other with the woman who is now my wife, brought frequent prayers for moral strength. I was a virgin when I married, but I suspect that had Polly and I waited much longer, we would have rounded third and slid into home. I can remember to this day, kneeling before God, still sexually aroused, and thanking him for keeping me from fornication. I know now, of course, that what kept me from sexual sin was religious indoctrination, threats of judgment and Hell, and fear.
I was also taught the importance of praying before every meal. As a child, I prayed:
Dear God,
God is great, God is good. Let us thank him for our food.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen
On more than a few occasions growing up, I started eating before the prescribed prayer was uttered. This would usually elicit a stern warning from my mom:
Mom: Did you pray for your food?
Bruce: Uh — mouth filled with food — I forgot.
Mom: You better pray right now lest God chokes you.
Bruce: (Who had never seen a non-prayer choked by God) bows his head and silently mouths a prayer of thankfulness to God.
I had drilled into my head by my mom and pastors that God gave me food to eat, and that if I wanted to continue eating beans and wieners or chipped chopped ham/gravy over toast, I better thank God for meeting my sustenance needs. This training stuck with me, and I continued to pray over meals until I was almost fifty years old.
Several years ago, we visited Polly’s Fundamentalist Christian parents. (Both of them have died over the past three years.) Polly’s dad was a retired Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastor. Mom was an excellent cake maker, and she had made a double-chocolate cake for us and my oldest son and his children, and my youngest son and his fiancée, who accompanied us. As we were preparing to eat the cake, my father-in-law said to my oldest son, “Are you going to pray for the cake?” We all sat there stunned, not knowing what to do. You see, desserts were never prayed over. Never made sense to me why we prayed for the pot roast, carrots, and potatoes, but never for dessert. My son quickly avoided the prayer question, and Dad decided to go ahead without it. Crisis averted. When Polly and I left Christianity, Dad would frequently ask me or one of my oldest two sons to pray for the food. Such requests were quietly and respectfully rebuffed with a “Why don’t you pray, Dad/Papaw?” Certainly, Polly and I don’t prevent anyone from praying at our table as long as they do it silently. God hears silent prayers, does he not? Yeah, I know, not really, but from an Evangelical perspective, he does. Want to pray for your food at atheist Nana and Grandpa’s table? Bow your head and silently shoot a prayer to Jesus. That’s all that matters right? If not, it would seem, at least to me, that meal prayers — especially in public settings — are meant to be statements instead of acts of piety and devotion.
These days, I am with Jimmy Stewart when it comes to praying for our food:
What were your praying experiences as a child? Did you pray over your food? Always, or did you make exceptions? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 65, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 44 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.
Over the course of 50 years in the Christian church, I prayed many prayers — tens of thousands of prayers, to be exact. I publicly testified before fellow Christians that God had answered my prayers. I had experiences that, at the time, defied explanation. Everywhere I looked, I saw God. When I deconverted, one of the first things I did was give a careful accounting of the prayers I uttered and God’s response to them. (Please see A Few Thoughts on a Lifetime of Praying to the Christian God) I concluded:
The overwhelming majority of my prayers went unanswered.
Those few prayers that I considered answered by God were, in fact, answered, not by God, but by and through human instrumentation.
I was left with a few experiences that I couldn’t rationally explain. One story comes to mind and I will share it here. One night, Harold Miller, a member of the church I was pastoring at the time, and I were driving down Route 22 east of Sego, Ohio on our way to touch base with a family who recently visited the church. As we neared Fultonham, a small community which sat on a ridge above Route 22, I noticed a car barreling down the hill toward the highway. Having no time to stop or change direction, I screamed at Harold, warning him of the impending crash, and prepared to be broadsided. Yet, at the moment the crash should have occurred nothing happened. Both of us thought God had lifted the car above ours, safely protecting us from serious injury or death.
Did God actually pick the car up so it would avoid hitting us? Of course not. Is this really a beyond rational explanation event? Not really. Perhaps my perception was wrong. Perhaps the car wasn’t traveling as fast as I thought it was. While this story is difficult to explain, like some of the contradictions in the Bible, there are reasonable explanations for what happened.
As a Christian, I was taught that God answering prayer was a simple matter of me praying and God hearing and answering my petition. I believed that God answered every prayer one of three ways. God said:
Yes, and what I was praying for came to pass
No, and what I was praying for did not come to pass
Not now, and what I was praying for was added to my long-term begging-God list
But Bruce, the Evangelical says, I have prayed prayers that I KNOW God answered! How do you KNOW God answered your prayers? Just because Christians utter petitions that subsequently come to pass doesn’t mean that it is God answering them. If Christians could ever divorce themselves from faith and look at things from a skeptical and rational perspective, I think they would find out that most God-answered prayers are anything but.
Virtually every answered prayer can be attributed to human instrumentality or luck (right place, right time). Years ago, I often prayed for God to bless me financially. As a young father with two children, money was always tight. One night, my father-in-law and I were traveling on a rural Licking County road to visit a church member. While driving down the road we came upon a box. I immediately stopped and got out of the car to investigate. In the box were numerous recently skinned fur pelts. I quickly scooped up the box and we took the pelts to a nearby taxidermist. While I do not remember the exact amount of money we received, it was substantial. See? God answered my prayer!
Polly is a manager for a local manufacturing concern. She has worked there for twenty-six years. During her tenure, she had never missed a day of work until her surgery for ulcerative colitis two years ago. Not one. Polly is a diligent worker, a great example of the Puritan work ethic. Her work reviews are always at the top of the scale, reflecting Polly’s value to the company. In the years that the company has given raises, Polly has always received the maximum allowable raise.
When we were Christians, we both would pray that she would receive a good raise, and sure enough “God” answered our prayers. But, was it really God who answered our prayers and orchestrated Polly’s raises? Or were her raises attributable to Polly’s perfect attendance and work ethic? Shouldn’t credit be given to whom credit is due? It was Polly, not God, who did the work necessary to warrant a raise. How about now? Neither of us prays, and even if we did it is likely that God’s prayer hotline to our house has been disconnected. Since Polly’s deconversion in 2008, the monetary amount of her raises has increased significantly. Couldn’t it just as easily be argued that becoming a nonbeliever and not praying resulted in these raises?
Christians will often point to the testimonies of those who were saved as proof of God answering prayer. You know the drill. Sister Lena is a member of Frozen Chosen Baptist Church in Godland, Ohio. She’s been a member of the church for fifty years. Lena’s husband Bob is not a Christian. Every week, Lena and the church pray for Bob’s salvation. Week in, week out, the church prays that the bloodhound of Heaven, the Holy Spirit, will track down Bob and save his wretched soul. And sure enough, one day, after forty years of praying, Bob is gloriously saved. God answered Lena’s prayer, right? (Lost in the discussion will be the question of WHY God waited so long to save Bob.)
Years ago (everything is years ago now), when I was the pastor of Somerset Baptist Church in Mt Perry, Ohio, the church took to praying for the father of one of the church members. This man was a violent, oft-cursing heathen. We prayed, prayed, and prayed for this man, to no avail. Several times I went to his home and shared the gospel with him. Every time, he said, no thanks preacher, I have no need of God.
The man was eventually diagnosed with throat cancer. Surgeons removed parts of his esophagus, mouth glands, and vocal cords. He was unable to speak. A short time later he had a small stroke. The church continued to pray for this man, and one night I decided to share the gospel with him one more time. And this time, the man started crying, and when I asked him if he would like to be saved, he gutturally said YES! I led him to Jesus, and from that time forward he would occasionally attend church with his wife and grown children. I vividly remember him crying every time he heard me preach (no jokes about my preaching bringing people to tears). I attributed his tears to his thankfulness for God saving him. Was his conversion the answer to our prayers?
Not likely. I am more inclined to think that his conversion was the result of him facing, for the first time, his mortality. Having been raised in a culture where God is frequently called on in times of trouble, this man, having had radical cancer surgery and a stroke, likely wanted to make sure his house was in order before he died. But, what about the tears? Perhaps they were tears of regret. There’s nothing like a brush with death to focus our attention on how we have lived our lives. Perhaps he regretted his meanness. Perhaps he regretted treating his wife and children like slaves. Who hasn’t shed tears over past regrets, right? Further, his tears could have had no connection to anything other than his stroke — the pseudobulbar affect.
After his “glorious” new birth, this man started displaying bizarre behavior. He began spending exorbitant amounts of money at auctions and yard sales, often bringing home junk of little value. When I couple this behavior with his getting saved, I am more inclined to think that his stroke altered his mind. Anyone who has been around stroke patients knows that behavioral changes are not uncommon.
A changed life is not proof of the existence of God or God answering prayer. A careful examination of salvation testimonies always reveals some sort of human influence. Transformed lives can always be traced back, to some degree or the other, to the work of the individual or others. While these transformations make for great stories of the supernatural power of God, they are, in every way, quite earthy.
I readily admit that there are mysteries that are beyond explanation at this moment. However, is God the answer to every unexplained mystery? Or is it better for us to admit that we don’t know and to continue probing, prodding, and asking questions until we do? Regardless, these mysteries are so few that suggesting that they are evidence for the Christian God is laughable. From my perspective, there is no evidence for the existence of the personal, hands-on God of the Christian Bible.
Bruce Gerencser, 65, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 44 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.
Last Monday, the Cincinnati Bengals played the Buffalo Bills in a game with playoff implications for not only the Bengals and Bills, but other teams in the league. Everyone expected a fast-paced, high-scoring affair, a shootout between rising stars Joe Burrow and Josh Allen. Partway through the first quarter, Bengals quarterback Burrows threw a pass to Tee Higgins, leading to a collision between Higgins, who held onto the ball, and Damar Hamlin. The hit was ordinary, one played out countless times every Sunday on NFL fields. The difference this time is that Hamlin immediately dropped to the ground as if he had been knocked unconscious. What actually happened was Hamlin’s heart stopped from the blow to his chest.
Monday night, I was flipping channels—mainly because I’m old and often, rather than streaming my content, I actually still flip channels—when I came across a shocking and disturbing scene. Actually, what I saw wasn’t so much shocking at first as it was puzzling. It was an NFL football game, with the action stopped and a player apparently injured. However, the tableau struck me immediately as odd and disturbing because there were so many players milling around on the field, seemingly all of both teams. This sort of thing usually doesn’t happen if the injury is a run-of-the-mill sprain; it usually only happens when the injury is very, very bad. And so it was, as it quickly became apparent to me that CPR was being administered to a player on the field, with the shocked announcers commenting on what was happening in hushed and horrified voices, not knowing how to discuss what was happening. I soon learned that the player was Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, who had gotten up after a tackle but then collapsed. As the CPR on Hamlin continued for what seemed like an interminable amount of time, I had two thoughts. First, I—like the millions watching—wondered if Hamlin had died and was saddened, even though I didn’t know who he was.
….
The first thought that came to mind among emergency room doctors, and trauma surgeons on social media was that the most likely cause of Hamlin’s collapse was commotio cordis.
This is a phenomenon when a blow to the chest can result in disruption of the heart rhythm and ventricular fibrillation and cardiac arrest. It’s not common, but it is a described phenomenon. As is the case with any cardiac arrest, survival is inversely proportional to how quickly effective CPR and electrical cardioversion are administered, and because commotio cordis happens outside of the hospital, like other cardiac arrests in the community, it has a high mortality rate.
….
One common misconception about commotio cordis is that it requires a blow hard enough to damage the heart muscle and cause a cardiac contusion, something that I used to see not infrequently in victims of vehicular trauma back in the 1990s when I still did trauma surgery. Timing is likely more important, as commotio cordis is much more likely to happen if the blow lands at a specific point in the cardiac electrical cycle.
Hamlin remains in critical condition at a Cincinnati hospital. He is on a ventilator. Immediately after Hamlin was injured, TV channels such as ESPN, CNN, and MSNBC thought it wise to assess blame for the injury. I heard every absurd explanation for Hamlin’s cardiac arrest except the fact that he was playing a violent sport, got hit in the chest as a result of a violent collision with another player, and his heart stopped. Dr. Gorski’s post was a response to anti-vaxxers who, within minutes, were saying Hamlin’s heart stopped beating because he had received a COVID-19 vaccination!
I had to stop watching the news. I can only tolerate so much ignorance and stupidity before I say ENOUGH and turn on Yellowstone, 1923, Tulsa, or some other program. I also found myself increasingly perturbed by the “thoughts and prayers.” crowd. Any time there’s a tragedy, out come the calls for prayers — as if prayer had anything to with saving Hamlin’s life. As Dr. Gorski makes clear, what saved Hamlin’s life was the proximity of medical professionals and equipment. Had Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest at the grocery, a restaurant, or at home, it is likely he would have died. If we want to offer up thanks to anyone, let’s thank science, doctors, and medical professionals. God had nothing to do with what happened, nor will he have anything to do with, hopefully, Hamlin’s recovery.
Evangelicals, the public masturbators that they are, have been quick to praise God for Hamlin surviving cardiac arrest. Of course, what is not mentioned is that this very same God is responsible for Hamlin dropping dead to start with. According to Evangelicals, God created everything. He is the sovereign ruler over all, including what happens on football fields. God could have kept Hamlin’s heart from stopping. He could have kept the collision from happening. Yet, after medical professionals heroically saved Hamlin’s life, the Evangelicals rushed in, saying, PRAISE JESUS! LOOK WHAT GOD DID. Recognizing that God is a part-time employee, Evangelicals implored people to keep praying. One NFL analyst, Dan Orlovsky, pompously stated that “we know that prayer works.”
On Tuesday, Orlovsky, an Evangelical Christian, decided to use his position of authority on ESPN’s NFL Live — a program I watched every day at 4:00 pm — to subject viewers to his prayer.
Before publicly praying, Orlovsky said:
This is a little bit different. I’ve heard it all day. ‘Thoughts and prayers. Maybe this is not the right thing to do but it’s just on my heart that I wanna pray for Damar Hamlin right now. I’m gonna do it out loud, I’m gonna close my eyes, I’m gonna bow my head and I’m just gonna pray for him.
God, we come to you in these moments that we don’t understand, that are hard, because we believe that you’re God, and coming to you and praying to you has impact.
We’re sad, we’re angry, and we want answers, but some things are unanswerable. We just want to pray, truly come to you and pray for strength for Damar, for healing for Damar, for comfort for Damar, to be with his family, to give them peace. If we didn’t believe that prayer didn’t work, we wouldn’t ask this of you, God. I believe in prayer, we believe in prayer. We lift up Damar Hamlin’s name in your name. Amen.
Orlovsky rhetorically asked, “maybe this is not the right thing to do.” Dan, that was the Holy Spirit telling you to keep your prayers to yourself. Surely you remember the words of Jesus where he said this about praying on NFL Live:
Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
….
And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when 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 6:1,5,6)
Orlovsky evidently thought everyone watching NFL Live was a Christian, so they wouldn’t mind his public prayer. That’s what Christian privilege looks like. Orlovsky seems unaware of the fact many watchers of NFL Live are NOT Christians, and many of them who are people of faith don’t like shallow public displays of religiosity. When viewers tune into ESPN, they are looking for games, scores, news, and highlights, not public displays of affection for the Christian God or prayers to Jesus. If I wanted religion, I would change the channel and watch one of the many Christian channels that are available these days. What I want from ESPN is sports.
Further, does anyone doubt what ESPN’s response would be if a Muslim analyst offered up a prayer to Allah or any other deity except the Christian God? OMG, the outrage would immediately pour forth. I suspect ESPN might even suspend the analyst. But, because Orlovsky prayed to the tribal God of most Americans, his prayer will be deemed acceptable. I am here to tell you it is not.
As I prepared to write this post, I searched in vain for one news report or blog post that questioned the appropriateness of Orlovsky’s prayer. Every story praised Orlovsky for putting words to his “thoughts and prayers,” leaving me to be a lonely voice in the stands voicing opposition to his prayer. Orlovsky could have prayed privately, as Jesus commanded. He could have privately gathered his fellow analysts together and had a prayer circle. Instead, he subjected Christian and non-Christian viewers alike to his peculiar deity and prayer.
I am sure that some of you might say, “Bruce, this is no big deal. It’s just a prayer.” On one hand, I agree. Orlovsky’s prayer is fifty seconds of public masturbation to the Christian deity. Who cares, right? On the other hand, as an atheist and a secularist, I am increasingly tired of the Orlovskys of the world shoving their religion in my space. If we don’t speak up, how will we ever put an end to these things? Religion is a private matter. Evangelicals wrongly think they have a right to shove their religion in our faces, and I, for one, am tired of it. There are millions upon millions of Americans — many of whom watch NFL football — who don’t believe, as Orlovsky does, that prayer works. What we do believe is that science works, and it is to the doctors and medical professionals who cared for Hamlin we offer up our “prayers” of thanksgiving.
Bruce Gerencser, 65, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 44 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 state motto for Ohio is “With God, All Things Are Possible.” Is this theological statement really true? First, “God” in this statement is not just any old deity, it’s the Christian God. And as far as Evangelicals are concerned, this God is theirs alone. Evangelical orthodoxy states that Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, liberal Christians, and other sects deemed heretical worship false Gods. For Evangelicals, the God of all things possible is the God of the inspired, inerrant, infallible Bible. It is through the Bible (and conscience and nature) that God reveals himself to us, thus God is who and what the Bible says he is.
Second, are ALL things really possible with God? 1 John 5:14, 15 says:
And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
This passage says that only those prayers that line up with God’s will shall be answered by God. This is what I call God’s “divine escape clause.” Countless other verses, however, explicitly say and or imply that whatever Christians ask of God, he will grant it to them. John 14:13, 14 says:
And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
John 15:16 adds:
Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
And finally, John 16 22-24 says:
And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you. And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.
These statements are in RED in the Bible, so that means Christians believe Jesus said these things. Another RED passage on the subject is found in Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him.
Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) evangelist John R. Rice, wrote a book titled Prayer: Asking and Receiving. Rice believed in a formulaic approach to prayer: ASK and RECEIVE. Based on the aforementioned quotes from the gospels, Jesus believed the same. Evidently, by the time we get to the writer of 1 John, things had changed a bit. Instead of prayer being simply asking and receiving, answered prayer was contingent on praying according to the “will of God”; a will, by the way, that no mere mortal knows. The LORD says in Isaiah 55:8,9:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Thus, when we see how this whole praying thing works out in real life, suggesting that “all things are NOT possible with God,” Evangelicals will appeal to God’s escape clause to defend his callous indifference to the plight of his Creation. God, then, is never accountable or responsible when Christian prayers go unanswered. “You didn’t ask according to my will,” God says. When the sincere believer asks, “Jesus, what is your will?” the King of Kings replies, “Oh I can’t tell you. That’s just between me and Dad. Besides, even if I told you, you wouldn’t understand. Me and Dad, our thoughts and ways are higher than yours and beyond human understanding.” Christians, then, are either left with choosing to believe what they can see and know or turning off their intellect and critical thinking skills and believing as Romans 8:28 says: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” Most Christians, sadly, choose the latter. When occasional lapses of faith or doubt force them to face the irrational nature of prayer, they are reminded of Paul’s words about doubting God:
Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will? Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? (Romans 9:19-21)
In other words, shut the fuck up. God is the sovereign ruler over ALL, and he does whatever he wants to do. End of discussion.
Christians who trust what they can see and know instead of Bible proof texts and unsupportable faith claims are left with a conundrum of epic proportions: God rarely, if ever, answers their prayers, and there is no evidence for the theological claim, With God, All Things Are Possible. Countless Christians in the Middle East pray daily for God’s protection — surely a prayer the Big Man Upstairs would want to answer, right? Yet, these followers of Jesus continue to be slaughtered by Muslim jihadists or killed by the actions of the American war machine. In Africa, countless Christians earnestly pray:
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. (Matthew 6:9-13)
And yet, they continue to have their daily food and water needs unmet. While they are starving to death, God, evidently, is too busy directing an American Christian to the location of her keys or working any of the innumerable “miracles” Western Christians say he does every time they dial his number, to stop and feed the hungry. Does God’s behavior not contradict what the Psalmist said in Psalm 37:25, 26?
I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. He is ever merciful, and lendeth; and his seed is blessed.
Everywhere we look we see the followers of Jesus and unbelievers alike forsaken and begging for food. Where is this God of mercy, this God of love and compassion? From my seat in the atheist pew, he is nowhere to be found. Which stands to reason, since the Christian God exists only within the pages of the Bible. God is the leading character in a work of fiction.
The reason Christianity still exists in the twenty-first century is that Christians either choose faith over fact or they choose to live with cognitive dissonance. The latter know the evidence points to the nonexistence of the Christian God — any God, for that matter — yet they believe anyway. Why? Most often, such people want to believe that there is more to life than the present; that there is life after death. They are willing to live with cognitive dissonance because doing so meets some sort of psychological need or gives them answers to the “big” questions concerning human existence. They see little to no evidence for the claim, With God, All Things Are Possible, yet they believe anyway. Certainly, they are free to do so, but I hope thinking Christians realize that praying and waiting for God to come through on matters such as climate change, war, nuclear proliferation, and the like is a recipe for disaster and will likely lead to the end of life as we know it. Waiting on the God with the unknowable will to work his magic condemns our planet and its inhabitants to death. We mustn’t wait around to see what is possible with God. Instead, we should work furiously to see what is possible through human will, effort, and ingenuity. It is through the humanistic ideal, not faith and theological prescriptions, that the problems now vexing us will be solved. Perhaps it is time for Ohio to change its motto to With Science and Human Ingenuity, All Things Are Possible.
Bruce Gerencser, 65, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 44 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.
Spend enough time around Evangelicals and you will learn that not only do they talk to God, but they also “hear” God talk to them. In any other setting, “hearing” voices will land you in the hospital on a 72-hour psych hold, but if the voice being heard is GOD, then hearers of this silent utterance are considered sane, rational beings. Evangelicals believe God not only speaks to them through the words in the Bible, but he also audibly, yet silently, speaks to them during prayer and meditation and at random moments throughout the day. Evidently, the Christian God is able to carry on millions of silent conversations with his followers at the same time. Awesome, right? Too bad this same God is not very good at making sure everyone he is talking to is hearing the same message.
Evangelicals say they hear the voice of God, but often other followers of Jesus hear different things, often wildly contrary to what God told someone else. I noticed this particularly during church business meetings. Members were expected to pray and seek the will of God on the matter of business before the church. After, “hearing” from God, members were expected to be of one mind — Greek for “agreeing with the pastor.” As anyone who has ever attended a Baptist business meeting will tell you, unity of mind is rarely on display. If everyone is supposedly “hearing” the voice of God, why are there so many competing viewpoints? What color should we paint the auditorium, the pastor asks? Let’s seek God’s mind on the matter! You would think that God would tell everyone BLUE. Nope. God, ever the jokester, whispers to various members different colors, sowing discord among the brethren.
Years ago, I started Somerset Baptist Church — an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation in southeast Ohio. The congregation first met in an empty storefront. After a few months, we moved to what was then called the Landmark Building. We rented the entire second floor for $200 a month. One day, I was out and about and stumbled upon an old abandoned Methodist church building — five miles east of Somerset, on top of Sego Hill. I made some inquiries about the building, and found out that it was for sale. I told the congregation about my exciting find, asking that they would pray about us buying the building. After a week or so, I held a business meeting, thinking God had told congregants the same thing he told me: buy the building! Imagine my surprise when it became clear to me that the church was NOT in favor of buying the building. I was so depressed. How could they NOT hear God’s voice? I thought. Yes, the building was $20,000, a large sum for a fledgling church, but I believed God never ordered anything he didn’t pay for. Dejected, I called the Methodists and told them we wouldn’t be buying the building.
Several weeks later, the Methodists called me and asked me if the church had changed its mind about buying the building. Before I could respond, the man said, make us an offer, Bruce. I shot a quick prayer to Jesus, asking him what I should do. As sure as I am sitting here today, I heard him say, offer them $5,000. I thought, $5,000? The Methodists will never accept such a low offer. But, not wanting to disappoint Jesus, I made the $5,000 offer. The man said, we will talk it over. Sure enough, a few days later, the Methodists called to tell me that they accepted my offer! I thought, PRAISE JESUS, we are going to have our own building. All I had to do is convince the congregation that the voice they thought they heard at the business meeting was not God’s; either that, or in the intervening weeks God had changed his mind. Fortunately, the church heard MY voice, and we bought the building.
Silly story, I know, but I think it aptly illustrates the idea that God speaks to people. I wanted something — a church building — and I got my way. I heard the voice of God countless times during the twenty-five years I spent in the ministry, and, without exception, what God was saying almost always perfectly aligned with what I wanted, needed, or desired. God’s will be done, as Evangelicals are wont to say, was actually Bruce’s will be done.
In late 1993, Pastor Pat Horner and Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf, Texas, extended to me an invitation to become their co-pastor. I prayed about the matter, deciding that God wanted me to stay as pastor of Somerset Baptist Church. I “wanted” to move to Texas, but God said NO, or so I told myself anyway. Several weeks later, I was pondering the future of Somerset Baptist, and all of a sudden, I started crying. In that moment God spoke to me, telling me he wanted me to move my family to San Antonio, Texas so I could become the co-pastor of Community Baptist. Wait a minute, didn’t God “tell” you several weeks before that he wanted me to stay in Ohio? Yes, he did, but evidently, he changed his mind. Never mind the fact that the Bible says, I am the Lord thy God and I changeth not and Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. I called Pat Horner and asked if the offer was still open. It was. You see, God had told them that I was going to be their co-pastor, so me — uh, I mean God — changing his mind was just confirmation to them of what he said to them. Two months later, I packed up my family and worldly goods and moved to Texas. My tenure at Community lasted all of seven months — an unmitigated disaster.
Another silly story, I know, but it again illustrates how crazy it is to think God “speaks” to anyone. God didn’t tell me not to move, nor did he tell me to move. There is no God, so the only voice I was hearing was my own. The NO and YES were in my mind and reflected the struggle I was having about whether I wanted to continue pastoring Somerset Baptist Church. I spent eleven years at Somerset Baptist, living in poverty the whole time. For five years, my family and I — all eight of us — lived in a 12×60 mobile home fifty feet from the church building. I was worn out, burned out, and tired of being poor, yet I loved the congregation. What was it then that caused me to change my mind?
We heated our mobile home with coal and wood. We also heated the church and school building the same way. We were running out of wood, so I asked a man in the church if he could get some wood for us to burn, He said, sure. Several days later, the man dumped a pickup load of wood in the parking lot and quickly left. I thought, it would have been nice if he had stacked it, but okay, he at least got the wood for us. I gathered up some of the wood, took it inside, and put it in our Warm Morning stove. I quickly found out that wood was unusable — too wet and green to burn. At first, I was angry over the wet wood, but then I began to cry. This one event — not a big deal in and of itself — pushed me over the proverbial edge. I was done. Is it any surprise, then, that God changed his mind and told me he wanted me to move to Texas? A good salary and a new 14×70 mobile home awaited me. A congregation thrilled over the prospect of me being their co-pastor awaited me. A young, fast-growing congregation awaited me. New challenges and opportunities awaited me. I said NO to all of this because I had a sense of loyalty to the people at Somerset Baptist. Most of them had been members for years and walked beside me as we built the church. I felt guilty over thinking about leaving them so I could have a better life; so my family would no longer have to live in poverty. But when the wet, green wood was dumped in the parking lot, my thinking changed. Enough, I thought, and God agreed with me.
Now, I am sure that my critics will pick these stories apart, suggesting that I was the problem, not God; that the voice I was hearing was self, and that if I had been more spiritual, I would have heard God’s voice and he was would have directed me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. I don’t believe that for a moment. There is no God, so I couldn’t have heard his voice. All my decisions reflected were the struggles I was having over life and the ministry. The voice I heard was my own, giving life to my wants, needs, and desires.
Bruce, I don’t care what happened in your life, I KNOW God speaks to me. How do you KNOW it is God’s voice you are hearing? What evidence can you give for such a claim? Why do God’s silent utterances to you almost always match your own wants, needs, and desires? Have you ever stopped to think that maybe, just maybe the voice you are hearing is your own? Yes, the Bible contains stories about God speaking to people — from God speaking to Moses from a burning bush, to God telling Abraham to murder his son Isaac, to God speaking to the crowd at Jesus’ baptism. Jesus told his disciples: my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. How can any of us know that it is God speaking? There’s absolutely zero evidence for God speaking to anyone. Evangelicals are free to believe that they have heard the voice of God, but they can’t expect non-believers to accept their stories as true without some sort of verifiable proof.
Believing God speaks to you is a matter of faith, a faith I do not have. Most often, hearing the voice of God is harmless, but there are times when hearing his voice leads to dangerous, harmful behavior — including murdering your children or taking a twelve-year-old girl as your virgin bride. Evangelical missionaries John Allen Chau and Charles Wesco lost their lives because they believed that they had heard the voice of God commanding them to go reach the lost for Jesus in dangerous foreign lands. Why would God tell these men to leave their houses and lands and go to the mission field only to kill them days later? What a cruel, schizophrenic God. Or, perhaps God has nothing to do with this; perhaps the only voices these men heard were their own; perhaps their deaths rest on the shoulders of the myriad of pastors, professors, and parents who whispered in their ears about the wonders of serving God in a foreign land and the rewards that would await them if they became missionaries.
Think I am wrong? Just ask God to tell me.
Bruce Gerencser, 65, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 44 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
I watched The Iceman — a film detailing the life of notorious hitman Richard Kuklinski. Kuklinski, played by Michael Shannon, is suspected to have killed over two hundred people between 1946 and 1986. One scene in the movie details Kuklinski’s murder of porn producer Marty Freeman (played by James Franco).
I am always on the lookout for mentions of religion when watching movies or TV programming. The Iceman has a poignant scene in which the Christian God plays a prominent part. Kuklinski, a lapsed Catholic, drives to where Freeman lives, planning to kill him. Let’s pick up the dialog at the point (38:27) where Freeman realizes Kuklinski plans to whack him.
Freeman calls Josh Rosenthal, the mobster who hired Kuklinski to kill him. Freeman wrongly thinks that they have worked out their differences, thus avoiding the need for Kuklinski to shoot him. Kuklinski takes the phone, has a brief conversation with Rosenthal, and says okay.
Kuklinski pulls out his gun . . .
Freeman: What the fuck’s going on?
Kuklinski: He changed his mind.
Freeman: No, no, no, Rosenthal is my best friend. I would never say anything.
Kuklinski: Not my problem.
Freeman: No, no, no, please God no. Please . . .
Kuklinski: What, you praying?
Freeman: God, please, God, please . . .
Kuklinski: You really believe that? You think God will come down and save you?
Freeman, face buried in a couch, continues to pray and weep . . .
Kuklinski: All right, I’ll give you some time. Pray to God. Tell him to come down and stop me.
Freeman gives Kuklinski an incredulous look and then goes back to praying.
Kuklinski: Our Father,
Freeman starts praying The Lord’s Prayer . . .
Kuklinski: Harder (looks at his watch)
Kuklinski: I’m not feeling nothing.
Long pause as Freeman continues to frantically pray . . .
Kuklinski: Nothing at all
Kuklinski: Harder
Freeman, exasperated, throws up his hands and says WHAT!? I . . .
Kuklinski: This is your last chance.
Kuklinski stands and moves to where Freeman is praying. Freeman turns his head, lifting his hands . . .
Freeman: No, no, no
Kuklinski: I think God is busy.
And with that Kuklinski kills Freeman with a derringer shot to the heart.
I think God is busy. Does this not reflect the feeling that millions and millions of desperate people will have today as they pray to the Christian God, hoping that he will come to their rescue? Despite their passionate prayers to the God who supposedly holds the universe in the palm of his hand and promised to never leave or forsake them, all they hear is deafening silence. No matter the circumstance or calamity, all Christians hear is a fast beeping sound and a recording that says, please try again later. And so these devoted followers of Jesus continue day after day, month after month, and year after year, to pray to their God, thinking that someday he will bring deliverance, healing, or blessing. Yet, in the end, God fails to deliver on what he promised. He fails in every way possible, yet the faithful still hang on, believing, much like people playing the lottery, that their big prayer payout is just around the corner.
I have written a number of posts on prayer and God’s supposed care for Christians:
If the Christian God is indeed the sovereign of the universe, a prayer-answering God, and the Father of all who call on his name, he sure is piss-poor at his job. In baseball, there is something called the Mendoza Line. The Mendoza Line, named after a poor-hitting professional baseball player Mario Mendoza, is the line a hitter falls below when his batting average drops below .200. No major league batter wants to drop below the Mendoza line. The Mendoza line is the “offensive threshold below which a player’s presence on a Major League Baseball team cannot be justified, regardless of his defensive abilities. The term is used in other contexts when one is so incompetent in one key skill that other skills cannot compensate for that deficiency.” (Wikipedia)
Think of all the prayers you prayed as a Christian. How many of those prayers did God answer? None of this God answers every prayer: yes, no, later, bullshit. None of this, we won’t know until we get to Heaven how many of our prayers God answered. None of this, God works behind the scenes, answering prayers without leaving proof of his actions. The Bible presents God as a mighty prayer-answering deity; a God who daily meets the needs of his followers. Yet, when pressed for examples of God miraculously answering their prayers, Christians are left with appealing to God meeting the more mundane needs of their lives. True, earth-shattering answers to prayers are scarce. Be honest, Christians. How many of your supposedly answered prayers can be verifiably attributed to your God? During our deconversion from Christianity, Polly and I went back over our fifty years of praying to the Christian God. We prayed tens of thousands of prayers (over 100,000 prayers between us), yet “answers” that couldn’t be explained through circumstance or human instrumentality fit on a few fingers. We concluded that God was batting below the Mendoza line, so much so that we realized that he did not exist. Hanging our belief in his existence on a handful of unexplainable events was not enough for us to cling to our faith. We concluded we live in a world shaped by randomness, natural forces, and human action — sans God.
In 1 Kings 18, we find the story of the prophet Elijah challenging the prophets of Baal to a God duel. Elijah proposed:
Now therefore send, and gather to me all Israel unto mount Carmel, and the prophets of Baal four hundred and fifty, and the prophets of the groves four hundred, which eat at Jezebel’s table.
….
Then said Elijah unto the people, I, even I only, remain a prophet of the Lord; but Baal’s prophets are four hundred and fifty men. Let them therefore give us two bullocks; and let them choose one bullock for themselves, and cut it in pieces, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: and I will dress the other bullock, and lay it on wood, and put no fire under: And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.
As can be expected, the prophets of Baal lost this God-duel. The Christian God sent fire down from Heaven and consumed Elijah’s sacrificial offering. Awesome story, right (besides Elijah murdering all the prophets of Baal)? Elijah prayed a prayer sixty-three words long. One prayer, sixty-three words was all it took for God to prove his existence and vindicate his prophet by supernaturally turning a water-drenched cow into a burnt roast! Yet, Christians will utter millions of words in prayer to their God today with nary a spark from Heaven. What gives?
My favorite part of this story is when Elijah mocks the prophets of Baal, saying:
And it came to pass at noon, that Elijah mocked them, and said, Cry aloud: for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.
In modern parlance, Elijah said: Where’s your God, Christians? He must be on his smartphone talking, in the bathroom taking a shit, on vacation, or taking a nap.
Now, Christians see this story from the perspective that the one true God, the Christian God, the God of the Bible, is indeed a prayer-answering God. Yet, when pressed for similar stories from their own lives, Christians have few, if any, tales of the miraculous to share. Perhaps, then, as Evangelicals-turned-atheists have concluded, the Christian God must be on his smartphone talking, in the bathroom taking a shit, on vacation, or taking a nap. In other words, the Christian God doesn’t exist. An argument can, perhaps, be made for an indifferent deistic God; a deity who set everything in motion and said, there ya go, do with it what you will; a God who has no interest in what is happening on planet earth, save helping Denver Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson “cook” or telling Granny where her keys are. Christians, then, are left with looking for God in the gaps or life’s minutia. When it comes to lightning-level answered prayers, God is impotent and silent; so much so that surely Christians can’t fault atheists and agnostics when they say, prove your God exists. It is not enough to speak of an ancient man named Jesus being resurrected from the dead. There’s no evidence that such a claim is true. What’s needed is a supernatural resurrection of someone such as Abraham Lincoln or Gandhi. Does not the Bible say, nothing is too hard of God? If Elijah can demand the prophets of Baal put up or shut up, can atheists and other non-Christians not do the same? Hell, I would be happy if God just sent some quail and manna down from Heaven to feed people who are starving or use his miraculous powers to give sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. Miraculously curing cancer would be awesome too.
What we are left with, then, absent God actually miraculously answering prayers such as those pleading for God to kill me, is to hope that he will one day take the earplugs out of his ears and actually give a fuck about what is happening on planet earth. Unlike Christians, I am not hopeful that deliverance awaits around the next corner. I have concluded that a prayer-answering God only exists in the hopes of those who believe. Without this hope, of what value is Christian faith? Preachers keep spurring the faithful on, hoping that one day God will come through. That he hasn’t suggests to me that he is a myth.
Bruce Gerencser, 65, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 44 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.
According to most Evangelicals, God is in the soul-saving business. He really, really, really wants to save sinners from their sins. 2 Peter 3:9 says:
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Evangelicals explain this verse this way:
God promises to save sinners and he keeps his promises, unlike mere humans who make lots of promises but never keep them.
God is longsuffering towards broken, vile sinners — that’s us, by the way.
God doesn’t want anyone to perish (die in their sins).
God desires everyone to repent of their sins.
Of course, the question that rises to the top is this: if God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent — all-powerful, all-knowing, present everywhere — and the Sovereign of the universe, the Creator of all things, why does God’s wish for the salvation of all men go unfulfilled? If God is able to save the meanest, baddest sinners in the world, why is it then that the overwhelming majority of the human race, past, present, and future, will die without being saved, and go to Hell? Why is it, if God is who Evangelicals say he is, that the majority of people who claim to be “saved” can’t be bothered to get out of bed on Sunday morning so they can attend church? These same people don’t read or study the Bible, nor do they pray on a daily basis. Why is that?
Evangelical zealots will respond by saying that just because someone says he is a Christian doesn’t mean he really is. These zealots consider themselves True Christians®, whereas most Christians are people who profess to know Jesus, but live lives no different from those of the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world. They are professors and not possessors; they have head knowledge, not heart knowledge. Wait a minute, I thought salvation was by grace, and not works? Well, True Christians® say, it is, but _________________ (fill in blank with theological jig dancing).
As I have shown, as soon as Evangelicals try to explain their peculiar interpretations of verses such as 2 Peter 3:9, all sorts of questions arise. You ought to hear Calvinists explain this verse; how God “desires” salvation for all men, but not really. It’s hard to say with a straight face that God really, really, really wants to save sinners while at the same time saying that God, before the world began, played a game of cosmic eenie-meenie-miney-mo, choosing to save some people (the elect, the chosen ones) and not others. Calvinists give all sorts of philosophical and theological reasons for God’s split personality, but in the end, it is clear: if you die and go to Hell, it is because God didn’t choose you.
Have you ever wondered, if God really, really, really wants to save sinners, why does he make it so hard for them to be saved? Most of the people born into this world will end up living in countries where Christianity is not the dominate religion. And we know empirically that people tend to choose the dominate religion of their country and/or their parents as their own. Why do most Americans claim to be Christians? Simple. The United States is a nation that is predominantly Christian. So it is for Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, etc.
I am a Star Trek fan. Anyone who has watched Star Trek: The Next Generation has heard Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) say to Commander William Riker (Jonathan Frakes), “Make it so, number one.” And what Captain Picard orders, Riker makes happen. Shouldn’t it be that way with God? If God really, really, really wants sinners to be saved, can’t he just say, “Make it so, number three (the Holy Spirit)?” If God is this all-powerful, all-consuming deity, why do most people in non-Christian countries live and die believing in and worshiping the gods of other religions? Why can’t God “make it so?”
If you have attended a midweek prayer (gossip) meeting at a Baptist church, you know the importance of begging God and pleading with him to save lost family members, neighbors, Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, liberal Christians, atheists, and anyone else who is deemed headed for Hell. This is one strange ritual that, even in my Christian days, left me a bit perplexed. On the one hand, Evangelicals preach that Jesus really, really, really wants to save everyone (Calvinists wink and say, just kidding). But on the other hand, Evangelical preachers tell congregants that they need to storm the throne room in Heaven with their intercessory prayers on behalf of the lost. Mention them by name, preachers say, leaving the question, what, the omniscient God doesn’t know their name already? Of course, some Evangelicals do take a shorthand approach to the matter, saying: Dear Jesus, bless the missionaries and save the lost, in Jesus’ name, Amen. Meet you at Dairy Queen, Bro. Bob! I remember one church member telling me she only prayed over her food once a day. No need to pray more than once a day, she said, God knows what I am going to eat. At the time, I was a pray-over-every-meal kind of Christian — except ice cream after church (no prayer needed). I told congregants a sure way to choke when eating was to eat food that had not been prayed over.
So it was with sinners. I encouraged church members to pray for lost people — every day, and during every church service, especially the midweek prayer meeting. I was taught by the pastors of my youth that if I would just pray, pray, and pray for sinners, God would one day gloriously save them from their sins. This, of course, proved to be a fanciful distortion of reality. Much like prayers for healing, most prayers for the salvation of the lost went unanswered. If God really, really, really wants to save sinners from their sins, why are so few intercessory prayers answered? I listened to Godly, old church matrons pray and weep for their lost husbands/children for decades without success. Their heathen loved ones lived, died, and split Hell wide open — to use the vernacular of Baptist preachers. Thousands of prayers have been prayed on my behalf since I publicly divorced myself from Jesus, yet I remain as lost as lost can be. Why is that?
As a Christian, I wondered why God didn’t honor the prayers of the faithful. What, was God sitting on his throne in Heaven, playing one little, two little, three little sinners, putting a mark in the prayer ledger every time a prayer was uttered for a sinner? How many marks does a saved soul make? Evidently, it’s more than a few thousand, or even tens of thousands. If God isn’t willing that any should perish, but all should come to repentance — not you LGBTQ people, you have committed the unpardonable sin — why doesn’t God save sinners without all the requisite begging and pleading?
1 John 5:14. 15 says:
And this is the confidence that we [Christians] have in him [God], that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.
Is it God’s will for sinners to be saved? 2 Peter 3:9 says it is. When Christians pray for lost loved ones and friends, are those prayers — which are according to the will of God — prayers that God hears? And if God truly does answer every prayer he “hears,” why, then, do most prayed-for sinners go through life without ever being saved — even on their deathbeds? This all seems so confusing to me. How about you?
Of course, there is an answer to this confusion. Let’s apply Occam’s razor, asking, what is the shortest, most likely answer to these questions? There is no God. There are no sinners that need saving. See how easy that was? Now, let’s head for Dairy Queen!
Bruce Gerencser, 65, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 44 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.
Most Evangelicals are taught that they should pray over their meals. The Bible commands Christians to thank God for everything, and that includes their food. I spent much of my life bowing my head and praying, either silently or out loud, before I ate breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Failures to pray were viewed as affronts to God, putting me in danger of choking on my food. So meal after meal I prayed, thanking God for the food I was about to eat. Even drive-thru food was prayed over, a quick mouthing of a few words of thanks for the Big Mac I was about to eat. I believed that not praying was a sin, a sign of ungratefulness. Whenever the subject of prayer came up in my sermons, I made sure to remind parents that they should be teaching their children to pray over EVERYTHING. In ALL things give thanks! Pray without ceasing! Much like an Aztec priest offering a prayer of thankfulness before sacrificing a virgin to his God, I would pray to my God, asking him to bless the food I was about to eat.
There were, of course, exceptions to this praying rule. Candy bars and pop bought at convenience stores required no prayers. Neither did ice cream at the local Dairy Queen or snacks after church. I look back on these exceptions now and see how hypocritical I was. Surely, Cheeto-eating should be prayed over just as one would pray over a five-course meal. Later in life, I would take to silently praying before meals eaten in public. I didn’t want to be associated with the Christians who made a spectacle of their praying, joining hands and praying in loud voices. My grandfather was one such pray-er. Not only did he pray over the food, he also used his prayer to preach the gospel to all who were sitting nearby. In his mind, it was important to let everyone know that Christians were in the house.
As an atheist, I no longer utter a prayer of thanks to a dead deity before I eat. I am still every bit as thankful and grateful for the food I eat. I know that I live in a land of privilege and abundance. I choose, instead, to thank the cook for the food. She’s the one who, from store to plate, prepared the food, and she alone deserves the praise for the meal. If it were up to me, I would try to live on Dr. Pepper and king-sized Snickers bars. I am so thankful that Polly cannot only cook, but that she is very good at what she does. She’s always busy refining her craft, ever willing to try out new recipes.
I am a big believer in giving credit to whom credit is due. If someone does something for me, I thank them — no God needed. It is farmers, not the Christian God, who grow crops and feed animals so we can have food to eat. Yes, the sun shines and the rain falls, but if these things come from the hand of the Almighty, he sure is schizophrenic. Every year, the weather is different. One year it is too cold, other years it is too hot. Rarely does it rain exactly when crops need it. If there’s a God behind the weather, he sure is fucking with us. Perhaps, this God is like an abusive husband who gives his wife just enough money to keep her coming back to him for more. If God is all that Evangelicals say he is, surely he is able to control the weather so that that crops will optimally grow and eight billion people will have enough to eat. Instead, farmers battle the elements, hoping that their yields will be enough for them to make a profit. Countless people will go to bed tonight hungry. Many of them live in countries plagued by drought or floods. If the Big Kahuna really is a God of love, kindness, and compassion, perhaps he can make it possible for starving Africans to have sufficient food to eat. Many of these people are Christian, yet their plates are empty. What does this say about their God? Should they offer up a prayer of thanks to the Three-in-One, thanking them for the 200-calorie bowl of U.N. gruel they are about to eat? I think not.
Jimmy Stewart, in the movie Shenandoah, said it best when he prayed:
Lord, we cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvested. We cooked the harvest. It wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be eatin’ it, if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked dog-bone hard for every crumb and morsel. But we thank you just the same anyway, Lord, for this food were about to eat. Amen.
What are your experiences with praying before meals? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 65, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 44 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.
One of the questions most asked by children has to do with the existence of God. Children quickly learn that things require a maker/creator. When they sit at the dining table for dinner, they see food on a plate, ready for them to eat. Children know that mommy, daddy, or KFC cooked dinner. The food did not magically appear on a plate. Someone had to prepare and cook the food. The same goes for the dining room table, dinnerware, and eating utensils. Someone, somewhere, designed, manufactured, shipped, and sold these goods. And the same is true for the food itself. A farmer planted crops and/or raised animals to provide the food. From start to finish, we see human choices and actions. This process reminds me of Jimmy Stewart’s memorable (and hilarious) prayer in the movie Shenandoah:
Lord, we cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvested. We cooked the harvest. It wouldn’t be here, we wouldn’t be eatin’ it, if we hadn’t done it all ourselves. We worked dog-bone hard for every crumb and morsel. But we thank you just the same anyway, Lord, for this food were about to eat. Amen.
Most parents teach their children the basic rules of life, one of which is that if you don’t work, you don’t eat. Food doesn’t magically appear in the cupboards. Having food requires labor, either in a garden or working a job that provides money to purchase it. This is the way it has always worked. Sitting around praying for God to provide only leaves petitioners with growling, empty stomachs. King David, of Biblical fame, wrote one of the biggest whoppers ever told when he stated:
I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. (Psalm 37:25)
Millions and millions of Christians will go to bed tonight hungry. They are the righteous spoken of by David. No matter how much these followers of Jesus pray, seeking God’s providential intervention, their plates will remain empty. God is not going to show up with a grocery truck. Having food requires human work, along with political environments where sustenance farming is valued and supported. In many of the countries facing famine, religion plays a prominent part in the lack of food. Catholicism, in particular, with its anti-birth-control, anti-abortion policies, encourages women to have large families. We see the same insane lack of family planning in Islāmic countries. When there are already too many mouths to feed, does it make any sense to have MORE children, thus exacerbating the lack of food security? Of course not. But, instead of handing out birth control and making abortion services readily available, religious leaders tell their followers to continue fucking for the glory of God, trusting that he will provide for their daily needs. How’s that working out?
Children should be taught when they are young that the only way things get done is for them to do it. Parents don’t help their children grow into responsible adults if they continue to do for them what they can do for themselves. Polly and I had many faults when it came to raising our six children, but not when it came to teaching them the value and importance of work. At an early age, our children learned that there was a connection between work and results. Want a weed-free garden? Someone has to weed it. Want a clean bedroom? Someone has to clean it. Parents wrong their children, crippling them as adults, when they do things children can do for themselves. When our children reached their teen years, they wanted stuff — cars, clothing, shoes, CDs, and money to spend on entertainment. Polly and I didn’t give them money, not even an allowance. If they wanted the trappings of our capitalistic society, there was one way to get it — work! And so they did. Learning this has served them well as adults; as a result, our children have often been applauded and rewarded for their work ethic (and been known as no-nonsense workers who give an honest day’s work for their pay).
My point is this: everywhere we look we see human endeavor at the heart of this experience called life. What we have comes not from a dime store deity somewhere who doles out his goodness and blessings according to some sort of mysterious lottery. While we humans fail in many of our endeavors, we know that the only option we have is to try again or try something different. The burden of security, prosperity, and success rests on us, not on a mythical God.
It is for these reasons that it is frustrating to hear parents, when asked by their children, where did God come from? respond with theological mumbo jumbo about God always existing, and that no one created him. History tells us that God — all gods — are of human origin. Take the Christian God. Has this God always existed? Of course not. Humans, attempting to explain the world around them and their place in it, invented Gods to provide a larger-than-life explanation to what, at the time, seemed unanswerable questions. For centuries now, humans have been appealing to the gods as the locus of their origin. These appeals were put in written forms such as the Christian Bible. When read with unbiased, uninitiated eyes, the Bible provides a fascinating look at the evolution of God, (The Evolution of God by Robert Wright) from the polytheism of the Old Testament to the monotheism of later Old Testament books and the New Testament (though one could argue that Christianity is still polytheistic based on its Trinitarian theology).
When little Johnny asks his mommy or dad, where did God come from? he should be told the truth. Johnny, ancient humans created God (s) as a way to explain their world. Our deity, the Christian God, was brought to life six or so thousand years ago by polytheistic Middle Easterners. Our God has been remade numerous times. Today, our God is very different from the God of Adam and Eve. The same could be said for Abraham’s God and the deity of first-century Jews. Humans, as time marches along, tend to shape God in their own image, adapting her to current cultural and tribal norms. While Christians speak of God having supernatural and divine qualities, it is clear to every honest observer that “God” is a human creation, with each worshiper shaping God into a human form that best represents their wants, needs, and desires.
But Bruce, Evangelicals might say, how do you explain the existence of the raw materials used to make things? They had to come from somewhere, right? Using a variation of the God of the Gaps argument, Christians think anything that can’t be answered or known is God. Since no one can answer the “how did it all begin” question, Evangelicals wrongly assert that it is their God who birthed everything into existence. This, of course, is a faith claim for which there is no evidence outside of the Bible. This still leaves Christians with the question, where did God come from? Well, God exists outside of the space/time continuum. And your evidence for this claim is what? Uh, well, um, (hanging head), the Bible says ____________. And now we are right back to a book that was written by men, not God. The Bible, from Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21 is the creation of humans, not a deity.
Perhaps science will one day answer all the questions about our beginning. Maybe not. For me personally, it doesn’t matter. While I might wonder about what happened before the big bang, I know post-bang that science gives us a plausible explanation for our universe and our minuscule, insignificant place in it. This is a good place for me to remind readers of Carl Sagan’s words about our planet:
Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.
Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.
It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.
— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994
Our planet, with its seven billion-plus inhabitants, is but a pencil point of light in the vast expanse of space. We who call this planet home are its caretakers. Our future success, prosperity, and life rest in our hands. God, whoever it might be, if anything at all, is not coming to rescue, bless, or take care of us. All we have is each other, and as Jimmy Stewart made clear, it’s up to us to provide for ourselves and those we love. Children deserve to be told the truth about these things. Telling them that there is some sort of Santa Claus-like God only teaches them a deluded view of the world and their place in it. Perhaps there is some sort of deistic God who set the things into motion. I don’t know, and, quite frankly, it doesn’t matter. It is clear, at the very least, that such a deity is not the tiniest bit interested in that which she has created, and that this God has left it up to us to plot the future of the earth and the human race. This is the primary reason I am a humanist. (If you have not read the Humanist Manifesto, I encourage you to do so.) The Humanist Manifesto states:
Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation, and rational analysis. Humanists find that science is the best method for determining this knowledge as well as for solving problems and developing beneficial technologies. We also recognize the value of new departures in thought, the arts, and inner experience—each subject to analysis by critical intelligence.
Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change. Humanists recognize nature as self-existing. We accept our life as all and enough, distinguishing things as they are from things as we might wish or imagine them to be. We welcome the challenges of the future, and are drawn to and undaunted by the yet to be known.
Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience. Humanists ground values in human welfare shaped by human circumstances, interests, and concerns and extended to the global ecosystem and beyond. We are committed to treating each person as having inherent worth and dignity, and to making informed choices in a context of freedom consonant with responsibility.
Life’s fulfillment emerges from individual participation in the service of humane ideals. We aim for our fullest possible development and animate our lives with a deep sense of purpose, finding wonder and awe in the joys and beauties of human existence, its challenges and tragedies, and even in the inevitability and finality of death. Humanists rely on the rich heritage of human culture and the lifestance of Humanism to provide comfort in times of want and encouragement in times of plenty.
Humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships. Humanists long for and strive toward a world of mutual care and concern, free of cruelty and its consequences, where differences are resolved cooperatively without resorting to violence. The joining of individuality with interdependence enriches our lives, encourages us to enrich the lives of others, and inspires hope of attaining peace, justice, and opportunity for all.
Working to benefit society maximizes individual happiness. Progressive cultures have worked to free humanity from the brutalities of mere survival and to reduce suffering, improve society, and develop global community. We seek to minimize the inequities of circumstance and ability, and we support a just distribution of nature’s resources and the fruits of human effort so that as many as possible can enjoy a good life.
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Simply put, it’s up to us. Whether it’s avoiding nuclear war or combating the effects of global climate change, it is up to humans, not gods, to change the course of history. Whether we will do so remains to be seen. As long as humans think God is in charge of everything and that she alone can deliver and save us, there is little hope that we will survive to the days when our sun dies and our species ceases to exist. As things stand now, I wonder if we will even make it to the twenty-second century. Religious tribalism, political extremism, amoral (and immoral) capitalism, poverty, global warming, war, and a host of other problems work against our future survival. Our only hope lies in all of us working together for the betterment of the human race and the planet we call home.
Bruce Gerencser, 65, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 44 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.
According to Evangelicals, getting saved is the most important decision you and I can make; more important than choosing whom to marry, where to work, what house to buy, whether to have children, and should I wear brown shoes with blue pants? (And the correct answer on the brown shoes, blue pants question is NO! NO! NO! Polly tells me I am fighting a losing battle. What’s next, women wearing white shoes before Easter? Dear God, what’s the world coming to? If this attack on propriety is not stemmed, people will be wearing pajamas in public.) Check all the boxes on your bucket list, but leave the PRAY SINNER’S PRAYER box unchecked and your life is deemed worthless — lacking in meaning, purpose, and direction.
Also according to Evangelicals, life begins and ends with Jesus. He is THE way, THE truth, and THE life. He is the beginning and the end, the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last. Jesus, according to the Bible, is the great I AM. He is not only the savior of sinners, but he is also the creator of the universe. All that has been, is, and will be, emanates from God alone. This deity is the one true God. All other Gods are false gods. This means that the overwhelming majority of humans — past, present, and future — are not saved, will die unsaved, and as a result spend eternity in hell and the Lake of Fire.
Most Evangelicals believe that Catholics, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Mormons, and anyone else who hasn’t prayed the sinner’s prayer, will end up in hell with Satan, demons, fallen angels, and Barack Obama. Saying the sinner’s prayer is the one thing above all others that matters in this life. These false religions are sending billions of people to hell because their adherents haven’t prayed the Billy Graham-approved sinner’s prayer.
Fundamentalist Geri Ungurean recently asked the question, Have You Truly Been Born Again — Or Has the Evil One Deceived You? Ungurean used the God’s Simple Plan of Salvation tract published by Robert Porter’s Lifegate, Inc. as the primary text for her post. As I will show later, Ungurean edited the tract to better fit her theological beliefs, but for now, let’s focus on what she says about how a person is saved:
If you were to die today, and God asked you why He should let you into heaven – how would you answer Him?
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I am asking you the most important question of life. Your joy or your sorrow for all eternity depends upon your answer. The question is: Are you saved? It is not a question of how good you are, nor if you are a church member, but are you saved? Are you sure you will go to Heaven when you die?
God says in order to go to Heaven, you must be born again. In John 3:7, Jesus said to Nicodemus, “Ye must be born again.”
In the Bible God gives us the plan of how to be born again which means to be saved. His plan is simple! You can be saved today. How?
First, my friend, you must realize you are a sinner. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
Because you are a sinner, you are condemned to death. “For the wages [payment] of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). This includes eternal separation from God in Hell.
“ . . . it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).
But God loved you so much He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus, to bear your sin and die in your place. “ . . . He hath made Him [Jesus, Who knew no sin to be sin for us . . . that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Jesus had to shed His blood and die. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Lev. 17:11). “ . . . without shedding of blood is no remission [pardon]” (Hebrews 9:22).
“ . . . God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).
Although we cannot understand how, God said my sins and your sins were laid upon Jesus and He died in our place. He became our substitute. It is true. God cannot lie.
My friend, “God commandeth all men everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). This repentance is a change of mind that agrees with God that one is a sinner, and also agrees with what Jesus did for us on the Cross.
In Acts 16:30-31, the Philippian jailer asked Paul and Silas: “ . . . ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ And they said, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved ’ ”
Simply believe on Him as the one who bore your sin, died in your place, was buried, and whom God resurrected. His resurrection powerfully assures that the believer can claim everlasting life when Jesus is received as Savior.
“But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name” (John 1:12).
“For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Romans 10:13).
Whosoever includes you. Shall be saved means not maybe, nor can, but shall be saved.
Surely, you realize you are a sinner. Right now, wherever you are, repenting, lift your heart to God in prayer.
In Luke 18:13, the sinner prayed:
“God be merciful to me a sinner.” Just pray: “Oh God, I know I am a sinner. I believe Jesus was my substitute when He died on the Cross. I believe His shed blood, death, burial, and resurrection were for me. I now receive Him as my Savior. I thank You for the forgiveness of my sins, the gift of salvation and everlasting life, because of Your merciful grace. Amen.”
Just take God at His word and claim His salvation by faith. Believe, and you will be saved. No church, no lodge, no good works can save you. Remember, God does the saving. All of it!
God’s simple plan of salvation is: You are a sinner. Therefore, unless you believe on Jesus Who died in your place, you will spend eternity in Hell. If you believe on Him as your crucified, buried, and risen Savior, you receive forgiveness for all of your sins and His gift of eternal salvation by faith.
You say, “Surely, it cannot be that simple.” Yes, that simple! It is scriptural. It is God’s plan. My friend, believe on Jesus and receive Him as Savior today.
If His plan is not perfectly clear, read this over and over, without laying it down, until you understand it. Your soul is worth more than all the world.
“For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:36).
Be sure you are saved. If you lose your soul, you miss Heaven and lose all. Please! Let God save you this very moment.
God’s power will save you, keep you saved, and enable you to live a victorious Christian life. “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, Who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
Do not trust your feelings. They change. Stand on God’s promises. They never change. After you are saved, there are five things to practice daily for spiritual growth:
Pray — you talk to God. Read your Bible — God talks to you. Witness — you talk for God. Join a Bible Study — You will grow in your faith. Develop relationships with other believers – Fellowship is so important!! – source
Here is a very simple prayer for those who want to know that they have truly been saved (born again). God knows your heart, so He knows if you are genuine when you say this prayer.
Say this to God:
“Dear Lord Jesus, I understand that I am a sinner and I ask You for forgiveness. I believe that You died on the cross for my sins so that I could receive Your forgiveness and have eternal life. I ask You to come into my life right now and become my personal Savior. From this day forward, Lord, I give you control of my life. Make me a new person and help me to live for You. Amen”
If you said this prayer just now, I want to welcome you to the family of God! There is nothing in this life that is as important than what you just did. And did you know that the angels in heaven are rejoicing over you at this very moment?
Pretty standard Evangelical fare:
I would ask you the reader to right now stop what you are doing and take sixty seconds to pray the sinner’s prayer, thus guaranteeing your room reservation for Trump Tower — Heaven location. I’ll wait. Pray, do it now, don’t delay. Push pause on the TV remote, call a time out, and do whatever it is that you need to do to carve out sixty seconds to do soul-saving business with the Evangelical God.
Did you pray the sinner’s prayer? Great, you will now go to Heaven when you die. No more worries. Once you are saved, you can never, ever lose the golden ticket to your mansion in the sky. No sin is so bad that it is not covered by the ‘Get out of Jail Free Clause’ in your Eternal Salvation Contract — Evangelical Edition.
This kind of thinking is what leads people to conclude that Bruce Gerencser, the atheist, is still a Christian. Once married to Christ, there is nothing I can do, including blasphemy and adultery, to divorce myself from God. I will lose rewards in Heaven and I might be punished for my sins in the here and now, but there is NOTHING I can do that will separate me from the love of God.
This, my friend, is the bastardized gospel preached by countless preachers and believed by millions and millions of Americans. Is this the gospel preached by Jesus, the apostles, and the Apostle Paul? Lots of Christians think so, that is until they are confronted with people and lifestyles that offend their religiosity. Can a gay man pray the prayer, remain gay, and go to Heaven when he dies? Can an atheist pray the prayer, remain godless, and go to Heaven when she dies? Can an abortion rights activist pray the prayer, continue advocating for abortion, and still go to Heaven when she dies? Can a child molester pray the prayer, go back to molesting boys, yet still make it to Heaven? If Ungurean’s post is taken at face value, the answer must be YES!
Back in my Calvinist days, we called this system of salvation “decisional regeneration” or “one-two-three, repeat after me.” Much of the membership growth in Evangelical churches is based on the notion of people mentally assenting to a set of historical and theological propositions. Believe THIS and thou shalt be SAVED! The Bible, at least in some verses, supports this version of Christian salvation:
That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation….For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.(Romans 10:9,10,13)
Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (Acts 16:30,31)
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.(John 3:15,16)
However, in other verses, a far different plan of salvation is found. Take Jesus’ words in Mark 16:15-17:
And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues.
Wait a minute Jesus, didn’t you say:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life. (John 6:47)
Make up your mind, Jesus.
The truth is this: Christians have spent the last two-thousand years fighting internecine wars over which and whose plan of salvation is true; whose one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism is the faith once delivered to the saints. If this post makes it into the broader Christian blogosphere, rest assured, zealots for this or that plan of salvation will set me straight on what must be done by whom to guarantee entrance into God’s eternal kingdom — which is the final home of all believers, not Heaven.
Towards the end of the Ungurean’s cut-and-paste of Lifegate’s God’s Simple Plan of Salvation, she edits the tract to better reflect her personal views about salvation and Christianity. The original tract says:
Do not trust your feelings. They change. Stand on God’s promises. They never change. After you are saved, there are three things to practice daily for spiritual growth:
Pray — you talk to God. Read your Bible — God talks to you. Witness — you talk for God.
You should be baptized in obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ as a public testimony of your salvation, and then unite with a Bible-believing church without delay. “Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord . . . .” (2 Timothy 1:8)
“Whosoever therefore shall confess [testify of] Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 10:32).
Ungurean edited the copyrighted tract to say:
Do not trust your feelings. They change. Stand on God’s promises. They never change. After you are saved, there are five things to practice daily for spiritual growth:
Pray — you talk to God. Read your Bible — God talks to you. Witness — you talk for God. Join a Bible Study — You will grow in your faith. Develop relationships with other believers – Fellowship is so important!!
The original gave three things to practice daily for spiritual growth. Ungurean disagreed, so she deleted what the original said about baptism, and added two practices: Join a Bible study [not a church?] and develop relationships with other believers.
Ungurean also had a problem with the tract’s proscribed prayer. While her post leaves the original prayer intact:
“Oh God, I know I am a sinner. I believe Jesus was my substitute when He died on the Cross. I believe His shed blood, death, burial, and resurrection were for me. I now receive Him as my Savior. I thank You for the forgiveness of my sins, the gift of salvation and everlasting life, because of Your merciful grace. Amen.”
Ungurean adds a prayer of her own:
“Dear Lord Jesus, I understand that I am a sinner and I ask You for forgiveness. I believe that You died on the cross for my sins so that I could receive Your forgiveness and have eternal life. I ask You to come into my life right now and become my personal Savior. From this day forward, Lord, I give you control of my life. Make me a new person and help me to live for You. Amen”
According to Ungurean, if you pray her soul-saving version:
If you said this prayer just now, I want to welcome you to the family of God!
Did you notice the difference between the two prayers? Ungurean added: From this day forward, Lord, I give you control of my life. Make me a new person and help me to live for You. And there’s Ungurean’s out. Yes, getting saved is as simple as believing a set of historical and theological facts (what she deems as factual, anyway) and praying a prayer. But, those who are really, really saved give demonstrable evidence that their lives are controlled by God. Who decides what this evidence is? Why every Evangelical church, pastor, and congregant, that’s who. Behind all their talk about grace, most Evangelicals actually believe that truly being a Christian requires a certain way of life. Except for the grace-extremists who say that once a person is saved, he is a-l-w-a-y-s saved, (men such as Jack Hyles, Bob Gray Sr., Curtis Hutson, R.B. Thieme, and Steven Anderson believe this), most Evangelicals actually preach some sort of salvation by works. And that’s okay, because that’s what the Bible says too. In fact, the Bible supports EVERY plan of salvation.
Here are a few other posts I have written on this subject:
Are you saved? Are you sure? Can you even be certain? Or, perhaps atheists, humanists, and not-punching-my-ticket-for-heaven religions are right. What really matters is the here and now; what really matters is living life to its fullest; what really matters is reducing pain and suffering; what really matters is making sure Donald Trump and his followers don’t destroy the world. When it comes down to it, Evangelicalism is little more than escapism. Evangelicals see the world as that which must be endured until death or Jesus returns. And while waiting for these things to happen — it could be today, MARANATHA! — Evangelicals withdraw into the safety of their Fundamentalist subculture — only leaving for work, shopping, ballgames, and making sure unsaved people live according to Evangelical interpretations of a two-thousand-plus-year-old religious text.
Let me conclude this sermon with the jailor’s question in Act 16: Sirs, what must I do to be saved? When you get the answer to this question, please let me know. Based on two-thousand years of Christian history and a myriad of books, blog posts, and sermons purporting to definitively reveal the way to salvation and eternal life, I think I can confidently say that Christians are hopelessly confused and divided about what Ungurean and her fellow Evangelical say is the most important question we will ever be asked. Until these purveyors of salvation get it figured out, what should the rest of us do? To paraphrase Solomon: eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.
Works for me.
Bruce Gerencser, 65, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 44 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.
