Last year, my client Susan called me to discuss her immigration case.
During our conversation she referenced the news that immigrants were being bused from the southern border to cities in the North, often under false promises, only to be left stranded in an unknown city.
In confusion and fear, Susan asked me: “Why do they hate us so much?”
While I couldn’t answer Susan’s question, her underlying concern highlights a startling escalation of public aggression against migrants over the past year.
Many outlets describe recent migration through the Americas as a “flood,” “influx,” “wave,” or “surge”—language that reinforces the notion that migration is akin to an imminent, uncontrollable, and destructive natural disaster.
There seems to be a growing “us” versus “them” mentality towards immigrants. This divisive language serves no purpose other than to divide our country, undermine the legal right to seek asylum in the United States, and cultivate a fear of the most vulnerable.
A clear example is showcased in recent media coverage of northbound migration across the U.S.-Mexico border. Many outlets describe recent migration through the Americas as a “flood,” “influx,” “wave,” or “surge”—language that reinforces the notion that migration is akin to an imminent, uncontrollable, and destructive natural disaster.
Woven into this framing is the near-constant use of the term “illegal” or “unlawful” to describe unauthorized crossings. As an advocate for immigrant survivors of domestic violence, sexual violence, and trafficking, I’m alarmed by the use of this language to describe a migrant’s attempt to survive.
Moreover, it’s often simply incorrect. A non-citizen who has a well-founded fear of persecution in the country from which they’ve fled has a legal right—protected under both U.S. and international law—to enter the United States to seek asylum.
When mainstream media wield the term “illegal” as though it were synonymous with “unauthorized,” they misinform readers and falsely paint asylum seekers as criminals.
Worse still, they encourage politicians who call immigrants themselves “illegals,” a deeply dehumanizing term. And the more dehumanizing language we use, the more likely it is that we will see immigrants as the “other” to justify cruel immigration policies.
We must retire the use of this inflammatory rhetoric, which distracts from real solutions that would actually serve survivors arriving at our borders.
Migrants expelled back to their home countries are at grave risk of severe harm or death at the hands of their persecutors. Those forced to remain in Mexico as they await entry to the United States are increasingly vulnerable to organized crime or abusive and dangerous conditions in detention.
The words we use in everyday discourse mean something—they can spell out life or death for those among us who are most vulnerable to abuse and exploitation. Now more than ever, I’d urge the public and the media to retire the use of sensationalizing, stigmatizing, and misleading imagery and rhetoric surrounding immigration.
Now is the time to apply accuracy and humanity in our depictions of migrants. Let’s not repeat the errors of our past.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
The Sounds of Fundamentalism is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a video clip that shows the crazy, cantankerous, or contradictory side of Evangelical Christianity, please send me an email with the name or link to the video. Please do not leave suggestions in the comment section. Let’s have some fun!
Today’s Sound of Fundamentalism is a two-minute video clip of Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) megachurch pastor Jack Hyles telling an overtly racist joke in one of his sermons from the pulpit of First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana. (You may have to turn your device volume up to hear the video.)
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
People didn’t used to be so brazen about it. The topic used to be one that caused feelings of shame, grief, and embarrassment. Much like sex and cancer and death, the topic of racism used to be one that Christian parents were reluctant to discuss with their kids. They wanted to make sure they said the right thing. Parents were careful to point to Martin Luther King, Jr., as somebody who fought racism with integrity and sought a society where color would not matter. They focused solely on “good” Black activists like King and Rosa Parks, as examples of Christians fighting racism in socially acceptable ways. Staying within a safe, comfortable vision of idealistic America, while nevertheless acknowledging the shame of racism, these parents thought they were doing the best they could. They tried not to think about it too hard.
All this has changed. It’s 2023, and massive changes have swept through America. With right-wing Christian extremism on the rise, more and more Christians are showing their ugliest sides. Well-meaning white believers have abandoned their façade of caring about justice, and now openly display racist rants on social media, listen to racist pastors, etc. Really, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to those who are well tuned in. It is nothing to be surprised about—nothing that has not been a long time in the making.
Nevertheless, as someone who still considers herself a Christian, it is shocking and disturbing to come across racist Christians online and in the real world. It is shocking when the church you once attended weekly sends out a bus to Washington on January 6th, 2021, when a person who went to this church is rumored to be running a brazenly racist Trump merchandise stand out by the highway, when the pastor claims that slavery was a small part of American history and that George Floyd died of a drug overdose. It is shocking and disturbing when your parents’ friends online are all rabid conservatives who call liberals horrible names, saying that you cannot be a Christian and vote differently from the way they do. I have seen violent threats, profanity, rage, hysteria, and hatred—all coming from people who, in the same breath, promote Bible verses about God’s love and devotional excerpts. There is an ugly stain of racism spreading and spreading among white Christians I know, and it is doing more harm than we can possibly imagine in our smug, self-righteous state of mind.
White, right, salt and light…that’s their life philosophy. They used to not be so obvious about it, as I said. They used to quote King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and share heartwarming stories about Black people uniting with white people. Even if their anti-racism was superficial, it was better than nothing. They used to quote clever clichés such as “It’s not the race, it’s grace. It’s not the skin, it’s sin.” They used to say that there is no Jew or Greek with Christ, so there should be no Black or white, either. They used to plaster over Black people’s anger by saying all lives matter. Not anymore. Now, they’re coming ever closer and closer to saying that Black lives don’t matter.
I came across this obscure, redneck IFB pastor in a cowboy hat, who posted a YouTube video called, “WHITE PRIVELEDGE.” The video’s seemingly ignorant and misspelled title was absolutely done on purpose. The video was nearly twenty minutes long, and the comment section dripped with “amens.”
I regretted watching the video. I wanted to throw up, more like it. He started out calling Black people thugs, then listed the ways in which he apparently had it worse than Black people when he was growing up, because he was raised tough and old-fashioned on a farm and got “whupped” and had to work for every privilege he got. After he was smug for a good ten minutes, he listed off every imaginable negative stereotype about Black people. Among them, he told Black people to stop wearing hoodies, stop listening to rap music (“nobody likes it”), stop “murdering your children at Planned Parenthood,” stop singing loudly and dancing in church, stop rioting and burning buildings, stop “whining,” stop “smirking,” stop being deadbeat fathers, stop getting unearned government benefits…and on and on and on. The only Black people this pastor approved of, in fact, were a select few with conservative views similar to his, who never challenged his white American authority in any way. In addition, he wasn’t too kind about poor white people who rely on welfare (such as my family when I was a kid). He was proud that his ancestors came from the British Isles and they brought the good old-fashioned Bible with them and they built this nation and they taught him values—unlike those low-born, urban thugs out there.
Don’t tell me that white Christian conservatives aren’t racist today!
Racism hides behind code words. These code words are known as “dog whistles” to some, but they’re mostly just thinly veined propaganda. Here are some code phrases to watch out for: “Western civilization was built on Christian values,” “In the good old days of the 1950s,” “When America was great,” and even “Biblical values” and “family values.” Yes, “family values” is a racist code phrase. Because these people believe that the Black family is dead, and that Black people cannot form successful families, they think that a Bible-believing, white family is the answer to everything. This reasoning mirrors American history, in which slave families were ruthlessly split up to be sold because the slaveholders believed that Black people inherently lacked family instincts. Also, they mourn the fact that these family values began to fade out during the cultural revolutions of the 1960s—the decade in which both of the main cultural revolutions, the Civil Rights Movement and the emergence of rock and roll, were fueled by the Black community. They may try to skirt the fact that they believe upholding Black civil rights has ruined America, but they really believe it, deep down inside.
And there are many more racist code phrases. The best thing to do if you encounter them is to contradict them as outright falsehoods.
As conservative Christians in the 2020s, we have invented a whole new list of sins. These sins are nothing like they were in previous decades. Here are the top sins: social distancing, wearing a mask, getting vaccinated, voting Democratic, and being “woke.” What exactly does it mean to be woke? It is another one of those code words that is thrown around vaguely to mean whatever the speaker wants. Yet it causes extreme emotional reactions because of the strong images it brings to mind. Many Christians who are forever calling other people “snowflakes” for not tolerating their conservatism, at the same time, have a “cancel culture” of no longer associating with anyone they consider “woke.” The Salvation Army may be on the “woke” list one day for seeming to support BLM, and the next day, it may be a popular preacher who shows empathy for BLM protesters. The next day, it may be a longtime friend who disagrees with the generally accepted view of racial reconciliation. Peaceful disagreement doesn’t exist anymore. Now, the question that God will ask everyone on Judgment Day, is, apparently, “Were you woke or were you not woke?” (My fingers are sore from all these air quotes.)
Just today, I saw a Facebook post on a Christian “discernment” page. It showed a crowd of Black Lives Matter protesters shrouded in darkness, holding signs that read STOP WHITE OPRESSION. Facing off against the evil protesters was one lone, brave, white Christian, holding a cross high. Written in small letters above the pictures were the words “Viking Christian.” This left little doubt as to what the creator of this post thinks about racial reconciliation and Black people in general. Sure, isn’t that being Christlike, to demonize all Black people and glorify all white people?
Do you want to know what the top deplorable sin is in the eyes of God? Pride. Check out the book of Proverbs. There are also plenty of verses in there about the righteous person standing up against the poor being oppressed. Don’t let people kid you—not even your church. There is no “sin of the year.” Wokeness is not necessarily a sin. White American nationalism is a sin because it can’t be separated from pride.
But it’s impossible to talk very long about this touchy subject. The white Christians I know are very eager to stand up for truth. They are so eager to stand up for truth that they annoy the shit out of me. I wish they’d stop standing up for the truth for three seconds and listen to what I have to say. I’m not asking them to agree with me or change their minds—I just wish they’d understand me in some way. I wish we could get across this impossible woke-versus-anti-woke barrier in some way! Ugh! Instead, they bully and intimidate everyone and anyone who shows the teeniest little smidge of liberalism. Paranoid and seizing upon every conspiracy theory they can find, they cling to morally bankrupt former presidents, tout sketchy agendas in all capital letters, call their opponents stupid; and yes, of course, take out all their pent-up, narrow-minded frustration on Black people along with other minorities.
People didn’t use to be so brazen about it. They didn’t used to be so bitter, either. There is a spirit of harshness, meanness, and bitterness that is ripping relationships to shreds, leaving cold silences for former friends, and screaming on the street corners. People are so bitter and sure of themselves these days, that the only way to stay safe is to make sure you don’t empathize with anyone different from you. Don’t spend too much time with people of different backgrounds. They might change your mind about the deeply-held views you’ve had since childhood. If you see them as people just like yourself, then you will no longer have a basis to be divided. So stay unified—and stay white! We built this country, anyhow, didn’t we?
I guess that’s the reason the Christians I know are so insistent that they’re fighting a culture war. It’s part of human nature to want to stay divided, at war, and on the winning side. Yet they’re pitifully wrong. If they look too closely at the culture war they’re fighting, they’ll see that they’re fighting for all the wrong things. It’s not Christian at all. In fact, it’s a race war, and they either unconsciously or consciously see Black Americans as their opponents.
We are not the light, and they are not the darkness. I am surrounded by racist Christians in a world of wokeness, in which nobody listens to each other or cares about each other. And I’m still trying to find my place in a world that doesn’t understand.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Have you ever wondered why Blacks have dark skin? Back in the days of my youth, my pastors believed it an important question to answer. Now, no one ever asked, “have you ever wondered where Whites get their light skin?” What was vitally important was sussing out a definitive answer for why some people had Black skin. The easy answers, of course, were melanin and proximity to the equator, but when you believe the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God, the right answer to this question must come from the Bible. After all, the Bible is God’s supernatural answer book. Whatever the Bible says about history, biology, and genetics is true. Now, the Bible never explicitly explains why Blacks have dark skin, but since Adam and Eve were White, well, where did Blacks come from? No amount of white-on-white breeding will produce Black children, so there must be a “Biblical” answer to why so many people have dark skin, right?
As a young Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB), I was taught that Genesis 4 clearly revealed to any racist who wanted to know why Blacks had dark skin. Genesis 4:15 says:
And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.
Genesis 4 details the story of Cain murdering his brother Abel. One of God’s punishments for Cain was setting a “mark” upon him. More than a few Baptist preachers, especially Southern Baptist segregationists in the South, believed that this mark was God turning Cain’s oh-so-European White skin Black. These Jesus-loving racists went to great lengths to trace the lineage of Cain down through history, showing — in their minds anyway — that Cain’s descendants had Black skin. Of important note was the fact that Noah’s son Ham married a Black descendant of Cain, thus continuing the curse down through human history. I knew of Baptist preachers who spent countless hours tracing the genealogy of Cain through the pages of the Bible. These preachers believed that Blacks were intellectually inferior to Whites, and were best suited for manual labor. Slavery in the United States was justified by Christian pastors who believed the Bible taught that Blacks were a cursed race that needed redemption. Slavery, then, was an act of benevolence — White slave owners giving their Black charges a far better life than they would have had in Africa or the Caribbean islands. This wretched thinking continues to drive how the United States interacts with countries with populations that are primarily non-White — you know, Trump’s “shit-hole countries.” These poor, inferior, ill-bred, ignorant people need our benevolence and help, even if it is given to them through military force or a coup.
By the time I left Midwestern Baptist College in the mid-1970s, I had cleansed my mind of the racist training of my youth. Sadly, Midwestern was rife with students and professors who believed that Blacks were inferior/cursed. I don’t believe the founder of the college, Tom Malone, held these views. After all, the college had a handful of Black students, far more than Bob Jones University had at the time. Malone, by the way, was a graduate of Bob Jones College and came of age in Alabama in the 1920s. If he was racist, it wouldn’t have surprised me, but I never saw anything from him that suggested he was. The same couldn’t be said for the man who was in charge of the bus ministry. Under his watch, he canceled all the bus routes to and from Detroit. These routes normally ran in the afternoon, bringing riders to what was called “B Sunday School.” Since most of the riders from Detroit were Black, students considered the afternoon “B Sunday School” to be “Black Sunday School.”
All freshman students were required to work on a bus route. After I returned to college for my sophomore year, I quit the bus ministry, choosing instead to preach on Sundays at a drug rehabilitation center in Detroit. The bus director cornered me one day as I was leaving school and chastised me for quitting my bus route. He told me I had a bad attitude — no shit, Sherlock! The bus director got more than he bargained for. I replied, “And you are a racist! I know why you canceled “B Sunday School!” We parted company, never to speak to one another again.
In the late 1980s, I attended a Street Preacher’s Conference in Washington, DC. While there, I met a man who was a rabid follower of IFB preacher Peter Ruckman. As we were fanning out from the Washington Mall to preach, the man told me that he didn’t bother witnessing to Blacks. “They don’t have souls, you know, so there’s no reason for us to witness to them.” I couldn’t believe what this “godly” man was saying. He was condemning to Hell a vast portion of the human race, all because they had the wrong skin color. I told him I didn’t believe such nonsense, and then I quickly walked away.
Racism is alive and well in the IFB church movement, the Southern Baptist Convention, and Evangelicalism as a whole. Thanks to our former White-Supremacist-in-Chief, Donald Trump, racists driven deep into the closets of Evangelicalism have now found the light of day and are quite willing to vocalize their racism and bigotry. That a Christian member of Congress can ponder out loud his wonderment over White supremacy being a “bad” thing, and Christian Fox News hosts can say that there’s no racism in the United States, tells me that we are far from living in a post-race world. And if God is for racism and bigotry, who are we to argue with the white Jesus, right?
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Recently, my husband and I were taking a walk when we passed by a neighbor’s house. The neighbors are a couple who have kids close in age to our own kids. Sam* coached our kids in baseball and served a term on town council, and Deanna* volunteered at the elementary and middle school. Both are active in the town’s Catholic church as well as in the community. Sam and Deanna were outside as we were passing by, so they came over to talk with us. Their older son Dan* just finished his junior year of college, and the younger son Nate* is a senior in high school. Dan chose to go to a Catholic university located about an hour and a half away from home, and according to his parents, it was the right place for him. We discussed how our kids were doing and asked where Nate was planning to attend college in the fall. Sam and Deanna talked about the pros and cons of the different schools that Nate had visited. Nate was initially interested in a particular large university, but he thought it was located “in the middle of nowhere” and was not thrilled about being stuck on a campus without access to a wider community. While another school located in Boston had a fantastic business program that Nate wanted to attend, he thought there were “too many Asians” at the school. Another school in Boston was ranked highly and had a great location, but there were “too many Jewish students” at the school. Deanna said that Nate really wanted to go to a school “where most of the students look like him because he’s not used to being in the minority”. Deanna and Sam stated that Nate needed to attend school where he would feel comfortable, “you know what I mean?”
Holy f&*%, that was out loud. Outside. In public.
My husband and I were stunned. I was speechless, and being quicker on his feet than I am on mine, my husband talked about our daughter’s college. Just days before we had returned from attending her college graduation. While located in the South, her university reports that 39.5% of its students are white while the remainder of the student body is composed of a wide variety of students from other races and ethnicities. Our daughter’s friend group reflects the diversity of the school. She loved having friends from a wide array of backgrounds, leading to deep, meaningful discussions. We told Sam and Deanna that our daughter had benefited tremendously from her friendships with a diverse array of people, and that we believed that particular university was the right choice for her. Sam and Deanna nodded along, but I could feel their skepticism. We quickly and politely wrapped up our conversation and moved on our way.
As we walked away, we saw Sam and Deanna’s Asian neighbor kids outdoors playing. We hoped that the kids didn’t hear that conversation. I was second-guessing myself – should I have spoken out more forcefully, directly calling them out on their racism? Also, I was disturbed by the fact that they assumed that because we were white that we would **wink wink nudge nudge**agree that our kids should attend schools with students who look like them. My husband and I knew that this couple had been Trump supporters in both the 2016 and 2020 elections. For a couple of weeks, they had placed one of those juvenile “Let’s Go Brandon” signs in their yard, and currently they have a “thin blue line” sign. We knew that they were die-hard Republicans, but we did not have proof that they were racists. My son had said that he knew Dan and Nate were Trump supporters, lumping them in with the “football guys” who were either overt Trump supporters or “libertarians” who secretly supported Trump but wanted to pretend to straddle the fence. Now we know.
In the couple of weeks since this interaction, we actively avoid walking past their house. A handful of families that we have known for years through our kids’ school and sports had supported Trump both times around. These are all seemingly respectable white families, active in the community, active in their Catholic church. They have coached my kids. They have volunteered at the school. They keep their lawns neat and are polite when we run into each other around town. Now I question how deeply they have absorbed the more extreme, nasty side of the GOP base. The racism, the misogyny, the anti-LGBTQ sentiment, the xenophobia, the Christian nationalism – how much of that is ingrained in their belief system now? They feel empowered to say it all out loud now, and we should listen. As Maya Angelou said, when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. I believe them.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
What follows is a load of horseshit from Joseph Mattera, an “internationally known author, consultant, and theologian whose mission is to influence leaders who influence culture. He is the founding pastor of Resurrection Church and leads several organizations, including The U.S. Coalition of Apostolic Leaders and Christ Covenant Coalition” . . . and a consummate shoveler of horseshit (and bullshit.) 🙂
At the writing of this article, there has been another horrific mass shooting, this time in Buffalo, New York. I am convinced that one of the primary reasons for this deluge of mass shootings over the past decade is the generational desensitization of human life in general, especially with the legalization of abortion.
After all, if a nation can legalize shedding the blood of the most innocent and vulnerable among us, this can subconsciously segue to the shedding of the blood of post-birth, fully formed adult humans. A nation’s conscience and boundaries are established by what it allows through its laws and ethics.
….
According to a news report I saw on television, the shooter was allegedly a white supremacist who’d had a conversation with a black man the day before the shooting in the same parking lot of the supermarket where the shooting occurred. They had spoken about race. The black man interviewed said he had told the young man “there is only one race.”
In response, the young white man said, “there are many races.” This belief that there are many races goes along with the evolutionary perspective of Charles Darwin, who wrote On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859), which purported that some species of humanity evolved more than others.
Future white supremacists like Adolf Hitler and abortion advocate/Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger utilized this evolutionary theory of various races to justify discrimination against others. While Sanger attempted to use abortion as a legal way to exterminate the so-called “negro race,” Hitler utilized gas chambers to preserve his view of a pure breed of humanity.
Biblically speaking, since all humans are made in the image of God, there is only one human race (Acts 17:26); therefore, the biblical position of the Imago Dei (image of God) is the most significant ideological position to hold against racism and all forms of human degradation, including abortion.
Regarding abortion, one of the seven sins God abhors is the shedding of innocent blood, because the (human) life is in the blood (Prov. 6:17; Lev. 17:14). Consequently, throughout church history Christ-followers have always fought for and advocated for the sacredness of human life, including humanity in its “pre-birth” and “post-birth” stages of development.
….
Hence, the equation goes like this: A culture with less regard for innocent unborn babies can equal less respect for all other humans. This results in more post-birth racism, crime, murder, rape and sexual harassment. Therefore, this erosion of societal mores makes it easier for people to objectify one another for their ends (like a mother terminating her pregnancy for economic reasons or to avoid embarrassment).
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
I write to lend my support to the Defiance College football players who have knelt during the playing of the national anthem. I commend them for their courage, knowing that most local residents oppose their actions. Their continued protest has brought calls for discipline, including expulsion from school. I commend college administrators and coaches for not bowing to public pressure to silence protest. These students, along with their counterparts in professional sports, need to be heard. Their protests have nothing to do with respect for the military or flag.
What lies behind their kneeling is inequality, injustice, and racism. While these issues might seem to locals to be the problems of urban areas, the truth is that we denizens of rural Northwest Ohio have our own problems related to these things. I recently participated in a forum discussion on racism in Northwest Ohio. Having lived most of my sixty years of life in this area, I can say with great certainty that we are not immune from charges of racism and injustice. We may hide it better, covering it with white, middle-class Christian respectability, but it exists, nonetheless.
Years ago, my family and I walked into a church towards the end of the adult Sunday school class. Teaching the class was a matronly white woman — a pillar of the church. She was telling the class that her grandson was not getting playing time on the college football team because blacks got all the playing time. She reminded me of a retired white school teacher I knew when I lived in Southeast Ohio. At the time, we had a black foster daughter. I had just started a new church in the area, and we were looking for a house to rent. This school teacher had a house available, so we agreed to rent it. When it came time to pick up the keys, she told us she decided to rent to someone else. We later learned that she said she wasn’t going to have a ni***r living in her house.
These stories are apt reminders of what lies underneath our country respectability. It is time we quit wrapping ourselves in the flag, pretending that racism, inequality, and injustice doesn’t exist. Our flag and anthem represent many things, but for many Americans, they represent oppression and denial of human rights; and it is for these reasons, among others, that players kneel.
Bruce Gerencser
Ney, Ohio
Many white — we’re not racists — locals have been in an uproar over the players not kneeling. In their minds, the players are disrespecting veterans and the flag — regurgitating Donald Trump’s lie. Never mind that the players say their protest is about inequality, injustice, and racism — locals know better. The faux outrage has reached hysterical levels on social media — especially on two local Facebook groups.
As is my custom, not wanting to waste my time trying to change the hearts and minds of people who already think they know everything, I stayed out of the discussions. One discussion, however, was so egregious that I decided to say my piece. Here are several screenshots of my short interaction with a local lawyer. Enjoy!
Just another day in rural, white, Christian, Trumpist northwest Ohio
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
I’ve been blogging since 2007. I have received thousands of negative, hostile comments from people who disagree with something I said or object to my existence as a living, breathing human being. I’ve been called more names than I can remember, pilloried for daring to tell my story or for having an opinion. ‘Tis the nature of the beast, I suppose.
Today, I received an email from a Black woman named Amanda who is a student at the University of Missouri. I replied to her email, she returned the favor, I did the same . . . no further response from her.
What follows is our exchange (all spelling and grammar in the original):
Amanda:
To call yourself a Christian and think that the “curse” of Cain belongs to BLACK PEOPLE with all due respect because we are not Black then you have come as a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The curse was the Albino. It is scientifically documented that ALL LIFE INCLUDING THE GAREN OF EDEN WAS LOCATED IN AFICA. PEOPLE WERE ALREADY BLACKS AS YOU SAY. The curse was the white of your skin because melanin protects you from the sun so as a dark-skinned person the sun would not ne punishment. But that is not even the case. The mark was placed upon Cain’s head. Stop inciting racism through Christianity. Trust me more people will go to hell than heaven and your written work proves just how tainted your spirit is. Ole colonizer.
Bruce:
Amanda,
Evidently, reading comprehension is not your strong suit. The article in question, https://brucegerencser.net/2019/01/the-curse-of-cain-why-blacks-have-dark-skin/ , was about my experiences at an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) college in the 1970s and as a pastor of IFB churches. You failed to see the context of this post.
I await your apology.
Thank you.
Bruce “Ole Colonizer” Gerencser, who is an atheist, by the way, a supporter of Black Lives Matter, a man who has numerous Black readers, a man who, as a liberal, socialist, and humanist, supports racial equity and ending systemic racism
Amanda:
You can’t even call Black People, people. Blacks is what you say. I read what you wrotewe all share one common ancestor. All of us. And just because you are pastor means nothing. I have known several pastors to misuse the information in the Bible, ole King James and his appetite for LUST. You state you left “the young racist thinking behind but you all still carry a piece of racism regardless if it is not directly. You come from a racist family obviously. You get no apology from me. The fact you say BLACKS is telling in itself.
Do better with your writing. We are Black PEOPLE
Bruce:
Amanda,
Evidently, reading comprehension is not your strong suit. I shared my PAST experiences, not what I presently believe. If you can’t see that, I don’t know what to tell you. BTW, I’m not a pastor.
As far as my use of the word Blacks, it is the word my Black readers prefer I use. Same way with using the word White. You see, I care about how I characterize people, that’s why I asked my Black readers how they preferred to be represented. I did the same with LGBTQ people, and, as a result, I stopped using the word homosexual.
You’ve backed yourself into a corner by hurling all sorts of insults at me. Now, instead of admitting you misread my post and misjudged me as a person, you double down on faulty assumptions. You do owe me an apology, but I know one will not be forthcoming.
I do plan to use your emails as fodder for a blog post. My readers will be excited when they learn I’m a racist.
I suggest you do some more study about the man you think is a racist:
As a young Independent Fundamentalist Baptist, I was taught that Genesis 4 clearly revealed to any racist who wanted to know why blacks had dark skin. Genesis 4:15 says:
And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.
Genesis 4 details the story of Cain murdering his brother Abel. One of God’s punishments of Cain was setting a “mark” upon him. More than a few Baptist preachers, especially Southern Baptist segregationists in the South, believed that this mark was God turning Cain’s oh-so-European white skin black. These Jesus-loving racists went to great lengths to trace the lineage of Cain down through history, showing — in their minds anyway — that Cain’s descendants had black skin. Of important note was the fact that Noah’s son Ham married a black descendant of Cain, thus continuing the curse down through human history. I knew of Baptist preachers who spent countless hours tracing the genealogy of Cain through the pages of the Bible. These preachers believed that blacks were intellectually inferior to whites, and were best suited for manual labor. Slavery in the United States was justified by Christian pastors who believed the Bible taught that blacks were a cursed race in need redemption. Slavery, then, was an act of benevolence — white slave owners giving their black charges a far better life than they would have had in Africa. This wretched thinking continues to drive how the United States interacts with countries with populations that are primarily non-white — you know, Trump’s “shit-hole countries.” These poor, inferior, ill-bred, ignorant people need our benevolence and help, even if it is given to them through military force or coup.
By the time I left Midwestern Baptist College in the mid-1970s, I had cleansed my mind of the racist training of my youth. Sadly, Midwestern was rife with students and professors who believed that blacks were inferior/cursed. I don’t believe the founder of the college, Tom Malone, held these views. After all, the college had a handful of black students, far more than Bob Jones University had at the time. Malone, by the way, was a graduate of Bob Jones College and came of age in Alabama in the 1920s. If he was racist, it wouldn’t have surprised me, but I never saw anything from him that suggested he was. The same couldn’t be said for the man who was in charge of the bus ministry. Under his watch, he cancelled all the bus routes to and from Detroit. These routes normally ran in the afternoon, bringing riders to what was called “B Sunday School.” Since most of the riders from Detroit were black, students considered the afternoon “B Sunday School” to be “Black Sunday School.”
All freshman students were required to work on a bus route. After I returned to college for my sophomore year, I quit the bus ministry, choosing instead to preach on Sundays at a drug rehabilitation center in Detroit. The bus director cornered me one day as I was leaving school and chastised me for quitting my bus route. He told me I had a bad attitude — no shit, Sherlock! The bus director got more than he bargained for. I replied, “And you are a racist! I know why you cancelled “B Sunday School!” We parted company, never to speak to one another again.
In the late 1980s, I attended a Street Preacher’s Conference in Washington, DC. While there, I met a man who was a rabid follower of IFB preacher Peter Ruckman. As we were fanning out from the Washington Mall, the man told me that he didn’t bother witnessing to blacks. “They don’t have souls, you know, so there’s no reason for us to witness to them.” I couldn’t believe what this many was saying. He was condemning to Hell a vast portion of the human race, all because they had the wrong color of skin. I told him I didn’t believe such nonsense, and then I quickly walked away.
Racism is alive and well in the IFB church movement, the Southern Baptist Convention, and Evangelicalism as a whole. Thanks to our White-Supremacist-in-Chief, President Donald Trump, racists driven deep into the closets of Evangelicalism have now found the light of day and are quite willing to vocalize their racism and bigotry. That a Christian member of Congress can ponder out loud his wonderment over white supremacy being a “bad” thing, and Christian Fox News hosts can say that there’s no racism in the United States, tells me that we are far from living in a post-racial world. And if God is for racism and bigotry, who are we to argue with the white Jesus, right?
For the life of me, I cannot see how Amanda came to the conclusions she did based on reading this post. Either she lacks reading comprehension skills or she is so agenda-driven that she sees every White as her enemy.
I’ve been quite honest and open about my racist upbringing and my own racism as an Evangelical pastor. I have, however, worked very hard to change my thinking about race. Does racism lurk deep in the shadows of my life? Sure. Most of us can say the same. Undoing bigotry in our lives is a lifelong endeavor. I wonder if Amanda sees her own bigotry and racism?
Amanda made no effort to learn anything about me. She read all of one post on this site before emailing me. She read a thousand-word post in a few minutes, judged me according to the color of my skin, and decided I was a racist. I have no remedy for this kind of ignorant, bigoted thinking. I have provided Amanda with all the information she needs to properly understand me as a person, past and present. Will she see the error of her way? I doubt it.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Susan-Anne White, a True Christian, So True She Can’t Find Any Church Pure Enough For Her
Readers might remember my war of words a few months ago with a British (Northern Ireland) Fundamentalist by the name of Susan-Anne White. (Please see Susan-Anne White Thinks I’m a Despicable, Obnoxious, Militant, Hateful Atheist.) White, a textbook example of what happens when Fundamentalism seeps into the deep recesses of your brain, is so Fundamentalist that even fellow extremists think she is too extreme.
Yesterday, White picked up her mighty digital pen and wrote a blog post about political correctness and the use of certain words. In her post, White presents a list of words that should never, ever, not one time, be used by Christians. Here is the list:
Below this list are the words Christians (and those non-Christians who can still think for themselves) should use and which were, in a time long gone, in everyone’s vocabulary at some time or other.
DO NOT USE
Ms
Spokesperson, Chairperson etc
Partner (except when combined with the words “business” or “marriage” as in business partner or marriage partner)
Pro-choice
Sex worker
Racist
Sexist
Ageist
Islamophobia
Homophobia
Transphobia (and NEVER EVER refer to a man pretending to be a woman as “she” and vice versa)
Climate change denier……….and so on ad nauseum
After listing words she believes should never be uttered by Christians, White then gives what she calls her “sane” list of words — words that should be used regularly by followers of Jesus:
Now for the SANE list of words
Miss or Mrs
Spokesman or Chairman etc
Boyfriend or girlfriend or live-in boyfriend or girlfriend
Pro-abortion (pro-choice is a euphemism for abortion)
Prostitute or whoremonger
Racist should only be employed in cases of actual racism such as Nazi hatred of the Jews and the KKK hatred of black people
I am at a loss as to how to adequately express my disdain for her post, so I thought I would write Susan-Anne White a short note. Readers should find my note to be an admixture of humor, snark, and sadness. White will likely see my note in a different light.
Dear Ms. White,
I see that you are a spokesperson for a particularly pernicious and intellect-killing form of Christian Fundamentalism. At first, I thought that you were just a single crazy lady, a woman who has spent too much time talking to her cats. Imagine my surprise when I learned that you have a partner by the name of Francis. While I have never seen a photograph of Francis, knowing of your acerbic homophobia and hatred of same-sex marriage, I think it is safe for me to assume that Francis is a he, not a she [since writing this, I learned female Frank’s are called Frances].
As I read your list of PC words, I came to the conclusion that you hate the use of these words because, for the most part, they accurately describe you as a person. You ARE a racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, climate change denier who hates sex. Evidently, you aren’t getting laid, and if you can’t get any ice cream at the Dairy Queen, you don’t want anyone to have any.
Like you, Ms. White, I call things like I see them. It is disheartening to see you, or anyone for that matter, so filled with hate and bigotry that you are unable to enjoy your brief existence on planet Earth. While you rage against atheists, liberals, sodomites, and all those who dare run afoul of your undies-bunching Fundamentalism, the clock continues to tick — an ever-present reminder that your life is swiftly passing by. Ask yourself, Ms. White, who have you won over to your side? Who has been persuaded by your hate and verbal violence? Point me to those who support your bigotry. Surely, if God is on your side, your fellow British/Irish-people will acknowledge this and thank you for speaking the truth. Why the silence?
Perhaps the real issue Ms. White is not truth, but instead a deep-seated need to be right. Now in the sunset years of life, you want validation. You have invested your entire life in a false narrative, and refusing to see this, you continue to seek affirmation of your beliefs. Finding no church worthy of your attendance — in the manner of the nineteenth century Calvinistic Bible teacher AW Pink — you seclude yourself, not only from the world, but also from those who gladly carry the name Christian. And here you are, all alone, with only dutiful Francis standing by your side. Can you not see the bankruptcy of your beliefs? Or are you so blind that all you see is Susan-Anne White and her intransigent beliefs?
You make it easy for writers such as myself to mock you and ridicule your beliefs. While such sardonicism is warranted, I feel sorry for you. You have spent your entire life raging against things that do not matter. Offended by words such as those found in your list, you have reduced your life to an increasingly narrow and extreme set of beliefs. Unable to enjoy the privileges and blessings of life, you trudge on, believing that God will, after death, reward you for standing against political correctness. Can you not see that you have lost all sense of the teachings of Jesus and the Christian gospel?
I know that it is impossible for me to reason with you. Like a stubborn mule, your face is set against anything or anyone who dares to challenge your truncated Fundamentalist beliefs. All I can do is point out the absurdities of your message, showing what Fundamentalism does to someone who deeply drinks from its poisoned, foul well.
The Right Reverend Bruce Gerencser
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
John MacFarlane is the pastor of First Baptist Church, an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) congregation in nearby Bryan, Ohio — the place of my birth. I attended First Baptist Church in the 1960s and 1970s. I was attending First Baptist when I left in August 1976 to study for the ministry at Midwestern Baptist College in Pontiac, Michigan.
MacFarlane writes a public daily devotional on First Baptist’s website. I have featured his prose on this site several times. Last July, MacFarlane posted a devotional titled “Racism.” As you shall see, MacFarlane thinks race and ethnicity are one the same:
I am writing today’s devotional on June 10 while sitting in a Hampton Inn & Suites hotel room in Louisville, KY
…..
The culture of Kentucky is definitely different than the culture of Ohio. I didn’t say wrong and I didn’t say worse. I said different and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But I want to share with you a very politically incorrect observation. Bear with me as I set this up.
In the little dining area of the hotel, the television has the morning news running to provide those enjoying their breakfast with some indigestion. News is never good, it seems. The news today featured: the millions of ransom dollars paid by a company to someone who had taken their computer systems hostage; issues on the border and a Vice-President who has yet to act as the border czar; Presidential missteps and mistakes; millions of COVID vaccines rapidly reaching their expiration dates; race riots, BLM, protests, white privilege, and apologizing for our race. That’s where my observations come in.How much of this is made up, contrived by those who aren’t content unless they are fighting?!?
How much of this is stirred up by people whose nickname should be Maytag – always agitating?
Oh, please don’t misunderstand. I believe racism is out there. There are places where it is practiced in some despicable ways. But deal with it there. Don’t bring it where I’m at and introduce it like another strain of the Wuhan plague. I have yet to be in a place where I’ve felt that tension and I don’t want to be in that place. Get rid of it THERE…deal with it THERE…and certainly don’t bring it around me!
Let me introduce you to Betty, Earl, Millie, and Carl. Every one of them had a much darker tan than I have! In fact, this was true throughout the facility. The Hampton Inn & Suites of Louisville, KY was an ethnic melting pot. So what?They were the kindest people.
….
The Asian housekeepers were courteous and polite, smiling and accommodating if you asked a question.
There were mutual niceties and respect. I didn’t feel treated or looked at differently because of the color of my skin and I certainly didn’t treat or look at them differently because of the color of their skin. Isn’t that the way it is supposed to be?
….
I never once felt uncomfortable or threatened. I saw blacks treating whites respectfully, openly talking with each other. I saw whites treating blacks the same way. Never did I see anything that made me think that I needed to hide in fear. Doors were opened for one another. Common courtesies and manners were demonstrated between ethnicities
…..
We cannot deny our history and pretend that there are not some very shameful events from the past. But I’m not living there. If the past continues to shade our present – if we allow it to do that – we will never move on and achieve the equity that is allegedly sought. Yes, atrocities were done. However, the people that deserve the strongest apology and acts of restitution have been in graves for many years.
Is it possible that some people aren’t happy unless they are stirring a pot, creating a fight, and spreading animosity and hatred? Once again, please hear what I’m saying. I know racism exists. But creating a national narrative that teaches racism is everywhere and that if you’re white, you’re automatically a racist is nothing more than a vicious, vulgar lie and I personally resent and am angered by the accusation.
Genesis 1:27 tells us, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” From this original couple sprang every ethnicity there is. There are not multiple races. We are all of one race and that race is humanity. Ethnicities are just the spices of life that the Lord has added to keep us from becoming dull and boring.
Celebrate the ethnicities. Respect them. Refuse to place one above another. Make the playing field level. That’s the way God does it.
….
The cure to the violence, hatred, and fighting in the world is NOT to give any ethnicity advantage over another. We definitely don’t need sensitivity training. It’s for EVERY ethnicity to be brought before the cross of Jesus and together, we humbly kneel in gratitude for the blood that covers our sins and the power of the resurrection that makes us alive.If it’s a fight people want, take them to the cross where the greatest fight ever was fought and won – by a JEW, nonetheless! Praise the Lord!
You would think that MacFarlane would recant his previous post and make amends for his overtly racist language. Alas, he is an IFB preacher, so no honest reflection is forthcoming.
Where do I begin with Biblical application?!? Let’s start by addressing the obvious – racism. I know. We are sick to death of hearing about this because of the media hype and the cancel culture. But we have to acknowledge and admit that racism does exist. There is a rapidly growing Antisemitic spirit in America. Jews in large cities like NYC are targeted for violence. There is racism against blacks. And there is a reverse-racism against whites.
….
Let’s add to this by talking about miscegenation. The vast majority of you reading this are the product of miscegenation. I am a product of miscegenation. From what I understand, my grandmother was a full-blooded German. She married a Scotsman who was part Irish. They had my dad. He married a woman who was part Irish, British Anglo-Saxon, and hillbilly! That combination had me.
What is my “cultural identity?” What is my heritage. I really don’t have one. I’m Heinz 57. I’m a mutt. I’m a mixed breed. And my culture/heritage is mine. It’s new. Better yet, I’m saved! That’s an entirely different culture/heritage that doesn’t fit with any that are in this world.
As I read Scripture, one heritage and cultural identity was to be protected and that was the Jew. Amazingly, it has been preserved through the centuries so that during the Tribulation, 12,000 from each tribe will still have their heritage intact and will make up the 144,000.
As I noted in my previous post about MacFarlane’s views of race and ethnicity, the good pastor doesn’t believe racism exists in rural Northwest Ohio (please see Does Racism Exist in Rural Northwest Ohio?). Oh racism exists “somewhere,” just not here in white/Republican/Evangelical Northwest Ohio. Today, MacFarlane mentions for the first time “reverse racism” against whites. I thought, yet again, OMG, John, did you really say this out loud?” MacFarlane is an avid Trump supporter — the man who has done more to advance the intellectual bankrupt idea of “reverse racism” than David Duke.
MacFarlane defines “miscegenation” as people of different ethnicities marrying each other. I am beginning to wonder if MacFarlane has access to a dictionary. Had he bothered to look up the word miscegenation, he would have learned:
Miscegenation is the interbreeding of people who are considered to be members of different races.The word is derived from a combination of the Latin terms miscere (to mix) and genus (race) from the Hellenic “γένος”. The word first appeared in “Miscegenation: The Theory of the Blending of the Races, Applied to the American White Man and Negro,” a pretended anti-Abolitionist pamphlet David Goodman Croly and others published anonymously in advance of the 1864 U.S. presidential election. The term came to be associated with laws that banned interracial marriage and sex, which were known as anti-miscegenation laws.
Interbreeding of different races John, not whites marrying whites. Surely MacFarlane knows this, so I assume his fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between race and ethnicity (and I understand “race” is a complex issue) is driven by his right-wing theological and political beliefs; that and the fact that he has spent most of his life living in white-as-a-KKK-sheet rural northwest Ohio.
Unfortunately, I will likely be the only local person to call into question MacFarlane’s harmful misunderstanding of race and miscegenation — along with many other political and social issues.
Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Have you ever wondered why Blacks have dark skin? Back in the days of my youth, my pastors believed it an important question to answer. Now, no one ever asked, “have you ever wondered where Whites get their light skin?” What was vitally important was sussing out a definitive answer for why some people had Black skin. The easy answers, of course, were melanin and proximity to the equator, but when you believe the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God, the right answer to this question must come from the Bible. After all, the Bible is God’s supernatural answer book. Whatever the Bible says about history, biology, and genetics is true. Now, the Bible never explicitly explains why Blacks have dark skin, but since Adam and Eve were White, well, where did Blacks come from? No amount of white-on-white breeding will produce Black children, so there must be a “Biblical” answer to why so many people have dark skin, right?
