The Life and Times of Bruce Gerencser

Tag: Somerset Baptist Church Mt Perry

Short Stories: The Bus — A Sign From God?

Years ago, I pastored an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church in southeast Ohio. Nestled in the hills of the Appalachia mountain range, the church ministered primarily to the working poor. The eleven years I spent at Somerset Baptist were revelatory as I learned through on-the-job training to do the work of the ministry.

I pastored all sorts of people. One such man was a transplant from a nearby IFB church. Greg was looking for a church that preached the perfect Word of God; a church that aggressively won souls for Christ. Recently married, Greg thought Somerset Baptist was a perfect fit for him and his new family.

Greg died a couple of years ago. Prior to that, he and I had a back-and-forth interaction which culminated in me writing a post titled, Dear Greg.

Greg and I spent a lot of time together, both socially and professionally. I genuinely enjoyed his company. We would play basketball outdoors and I would help him fix his car. A mechanic, Greg was not. One time, he accidentally drained the oil from his manual transmission, putting five extra quarts of oil in the motor. He then jumped in the car and drove to the church ten miles away to go soulwinning with me. Needless to say, his transmission and motor were smoking by the time he pulled into the church parking lot. Fortunately, Greg didn’t ruin the power train of his car. I helped him get the fluids where they belonged. We had a shared memory I never forgot. Funny, in retrospect, but a mistake that could have cost Greg thousands of dollars.

Greg was one church member I could count on to show up for visitation or soulwinning. Greg also preached, taught Sunday School, and worked in the bus ministry. He and his family attended church every time the doors were open. (He eventually left because he found out I was a Calvinist — an unpardonable sin, in his mind.)

While most people, including myself, thought Greg was eccentric, the real issue was undiagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). This resulted in Greg having deep, dark psychological struggles. We would talk about these struggles, but I was not much help. I tried to support Greg and be his friend, but I knew nothing about OCD. Years later, I would understand much better after I was diagnosed with OCPD.

Greg struggled with his OCD, wondering if God was punishing him or Satan was tempting him. Such thinking was common in IFB churches. Blame must be assigned, and I suspect deep down Greg blamed himself. Isn’t that what we were taught?

Greg had a lot of upheaval in his life, from moving to job changes. I always tried to be there for him (and his dear wife), but I’m sure I could have done more if I had known and recognized the signs of OCD and tried to get Greg into therapy. Instead, I was adamantly against going outside of the church for help. God, the Bible, and the church were all any of us needed, the thinking went. Boy, was I wrong, causing harm to congregants with mental health challenges. And causing harm to myself by spiritualizing my own psychological struggles.

One time, Greg was looking for a new job. Previously, Greg had driven a bus for a local school district. He thought he would try his hand at driving again for a new school.

On the appointed day, Greg went to the school bus lot for an interview. While getting on a bus, Greg glanced down and was shocked by what he saw. What did he see? The word “Carpenter.” Huh? Let me explain.

Carpenter Body Works was a bus-building company in Mitchell, Indiana. They went out of business in 2001. You see, Greg’s last name was Carpenter, and his OCD brain was absolutely certain that this was a sign from God. How else could Greg explain the word “Carpenter” on the bus floor?

This settled the matter for Greg, and he accepted a driving job. Greg loved driving bus, but with a wife and children to provide for, the bus-driving job didn’t pay the bills. Greg later took a factory job. No further mention was made of the “sign from God.”

All these years later, I lament how my ignorance and lack of training hurt Greg. Unintentional, to be sure, but I wonder how much more peaceful his life might have been had I been more competent to help. That is, if Greg were willing to accept my help. Psychological problems were typically ignored or shoved under the proverbial church rug. I pastored scores of people with undiagnosed mental health problems. Sunday after Sunday they suffered as I told them Jesus and the Bible were all they needed to find love, peace, and happiness. This, of course, was a lie. It took me years to learn that the church was not the cure-all for what ailed us. By then countless hurting people came and went, going to the “world” to find people to help them. How could it be otherwise? Most Evangelical pastors are unqualified to counsel people about psychological problems. Greg certainly needed my friendship, but he needed a friend that understood his OCD, even if he refused to see and understand it for himself. Sadly IFB beliefs about sin and holiness only fueled Greg’s OCD. For him, minor, insignificant “sins” became full blown crises of faith, leading to extreme restlessness and suicidal thoughts. Greg deserved better than what Pastor Bruce and the church had to offer.

How did your church and pastor handle the mental health struggles of church members (or their own)? Please share your experiences in the comment section.

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

July 7, 2026
Reader Zero: Thank You, Zoe

Bruce Gerencser, 1991, Somerset Baptist Academy. Surely everyone can see from this picture that I was a real Christian. 🙂

Environmental Scientist recently asked “[…] have you reached out to these former students and apologized?”

Zoe responded:

Ugh. Heaviness. Sigh.

I remember coming across Bruce’s blog ages ago. Maybe the dinosaurs were still roaming the earth back then? It was a post where he apologized. I cannot recall the specifics, but it was the first time I had ever heard, whether in person or online or in a book, a pastor apologize.

To date, he’s the only one.

I don’t know but I sense that in a way, Bruce’s writing is his attempt to apologize. The weight of sorrow that accompanies decisions made during our former believing days, is ever present. I wish the inventors of Christianity would apologize to me. I wish my ancestors had apologized to me. I am thankful that in my generation, I broke the cycle. Maybe breaking the cycle is our apology.

Zoe is a personal friend of mine. She’s been a reader of my writing from almost day one. I appreciate her friendship and support.

Zoe has seen my highs, lows, and meltdowns. It took me years to learn how best to deal with and respond to aggressive, violent, abusive Evangelical commenters. Years ago, when the pressure got to be too much, I would quit blogging. In late 2014, something clicked for me, and I’ve not stopped blogging since. This does not mean that I’m impervious to the ill treatment I receive from some Evangelical commenters. What’s different is that I have, over time, developed a thicker skin. I’ve also come to understand how deeply indoctrination and conditioning hinders some Evangelicals from having pleasant, thoughtful discussions. Instead, I am viewed as an enemy of Jesus and Christianity, unworthy of kindness and respect. I’ve concluded that many Evangelicals don’t believe the Bible commands governing their behavior apply when dealing with apostates, reprobates, and atheists. Never mind the fact that the Bible has a lot to say about how Christians should treat their enemies.

Over the years, I’ve been as open and honest as I could possibly be. Do I still have secrets; things I’m uncomfortable sharing with the public? Sure, and I make no apology for having them. That said, I’ve done my best to answer questions from friends and critics alike.

In 1989, I started a private school: Somerset Baptist Academy. The school was built on a one room school house approach. With 15-18 students, K-12, this was not hard to do. The focus was academic proficiency instead of grade level. Thus, an eleventh grader might be taking reading with fourth graders. Students were slotted based on academic ability. While this proved embarrassing for some older students, it did provide motivation for them to do better.

Most of the students “fondly” remember Preacher’s weekly timed math facts tests. Every student took the same tests. Passing the tests in a certain amount of time meant students didn’t have to take the tests any more. Eventually, all of the students passed.

Somerset Baptist Academy was an unchartered private religious school. What this meant, practically, is that the government left us alone, even though we were costing the local school district $75,000-$150,000 a year from lost state funding. That said, I faced no problems with the local school superintendent. In fact, he graciously donated desks for our school to use.

SBA was a tuition-free school, with unpaid teachers and staff. Polly and I were the primary teachers, with church members helping in areas they were proficient (i.e. home economics, auto repair, small engine repair).

The school was pass-fail. The goal was proficiency, not grade point average. One third of the students were excellent scholars. The rest of the students had various academic challenges. For these students, public schools had largely abandoned them.

One highlight was the fact that our little school had computers before the public schools did. Thanks to me being a computer geek and my office being in the same building as the school, older students had access to my computers. They were well ahead of public-school students when it came to computers.

We decided early on to focus on core academic proficiency. Teach students to competently read, write, and do maths, they can do almost anything. If you can’t read, write, and balance your checkbook, you are in for a hard life.

The school was started at the same time my theology moved from Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) beliefs to Evangelical Calvinism. This, of course, affected the theology taught in the school — primarily by me. Order and discipline were important. While corporeal punishment was permitted, I only paddled one student. I had no stomach for paddling other parents’ children. Instead, I would send a note home detailing the infraction, asking parents to discipline their children.

I did, however, use after school detentions as punishment for offenses. And not public school-like detention, either. Students in detention were given work to do after school: pulling weeds, cleaning fence lines, mowing grass, splitting and stacking wood, hauling coal, shoveling snow, cleaning the buildings, and straightening song books for the next service.

Years later, now an atheist and a humanist, I have mellowed out. I have no doubt I would do things differently if I was operating a Christian school today. But, it was the late 80s, and I had a lot of learning to learn and unlearn. I remain a work in progress. Sadly, some readers refuse to grant me grace. The more open I am, the more critical they become. Another reader, which I plan to dispense forthwith, has been sending me emails accusing me of abusing Polly and being a bad husband, totally ignoring the religious and cultural paradigms that were in play, at the time. We were a patriarchal family, willingly so. Same goes for Calvinism, which directly affected how many children we had.

I’m generally self-aware. Both of my therapists have told me that I’m too self-aware; that I’m hyper judgmental of self; that I struggle with guilt. Believe me, I want to be well thought of by others. I don’t like conflict, nor do I want people to be angry with me. But, in the real world, church conflict is common. I pastored scores of delightful people, but I also was shepherd to more than a few troublemaking, judgmental assholes. That’s the nature of the ministry. I tried to do my best, but that was never enough, for some people. I apologized when warranted, but refused to do so when I committed no offense. So it is with students at Somerset Baptist Academy.

Have I apologized to some of the students over the years? Sure. Who they are and what I apologized for is no one’s business except the parties involved. I have had lunch/dinner with several students. I’d say I’m on good terms with ten of the students — all of whom I have met and interacted with over the years. A few years back, I conducted the funeral for the father of four students. I sensed no anger or animosity from any of them.

Half of the students ended up graduating from college, including two of my sons. I like to think Polly and I, along with other volunteers, put students on a better path. It is, of course, up to them to tell their own stories. If if have learned anything, it is this: experiences are personal; and that no two people have the same experience. I would love to have former students share their SBA “war stories,” but these events are over 30 years old. Most of the students understand their five years at Somerset Baptist Academy in its theological, cultural, and tribal context. They view me as a man who was trying to do the right thing; trying to make life better for them. Did I fail? I will it leave to them to say.

To Zoe I say, once again, thank you! ❤️

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

June 14, 2026
Amish-Mennonite Man Says I Was a Christian When He Knew Me as a Pastor

In the 1980s and 1990s, I pastored Somerset Baptist Church in Mt. Perry, Ohio. I planted the church, and in its heyday it surpassed 200 in attendance. Not far from our church sat Calvary Bible Fellowship — a large Amish-Mennonite community. My partner and I, along with our children, attended Calvary Bible on occasion. We really enjoyed the accapella music.

I befriended some of the church men over the years. I suspect they viewed me as an oddity: Fundamentalist like them, but not quite. Suspicious of most religious sects, the folks at Calvary Bible were not quick to paint someone a Christian.

Recently, I received a short email from an Amish-Mennonite man named John. John remembers my preaching and witness for Christ, but doesn’t remember personally talking with me much. He’s older than me, so I will attribute his faulty memory to age. 🙂 John and I had several discussions over the years, including at his business down the road from the church.

John wrote:

A, born again believer has a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. He had repented of his sins, recognizing that he needs a savior, and an asked Jesus to come into his life the Holy Spirit to guide him, and even a true Christian enjoys his relationship with the Lord he has assurance of salvation and he would not leave that relationship and become an atheist. I’m sorry to say but Bruce I still love you and I know that the Lord does too and he’s calling you to come back to him and race receive a relationship with him and obtain eternal life at the end. I was a minister at Calvary Bible Fellowship for early 20 years. I still remember you were quite diligent and in talking to people about the Lord and as I remember you challenge the Catholics, but I don’t remember personally talking with you very much that I can remember.

For the purpose of this post, I want readers to ignore John’s sermons. Nothing new there; nothing I haven’t heard countless times before — albeit from an Arminian perspective. I want to focus on John’s description of me:

I still remember you were quite diligent and in talking to people about the Lord and as I remember you challenge the Catholics.

Think of how many zealots and apologists have attacked my character, saying I was a fraud, a liar, a deceiver Several preachers have spread far and wide the lie that I never was a pastor. My story is a legend, not lived history. John, who knew me better than ANY of my critics, saw me differently. John and I crossed paths many times over the years. He and his family lived two miles down the road from our church and “spacious” 12’x60 foot Hillbilly Mansion on wheels. We saw each other here and there, usually trading pleasantries, and, on occasion, talking about the decline of society, the Bible, and Christian education (we used books from Mennonite publisher, Rod & Staff, in our private Christian school). I found John to be a good man; someone I enjoyed talking to, on occasion. He certainly took his faith seriously.

I snickered a bit when John mentioned me challenging Catholics. Yeah, there was a time when I had no contact with Catholics other than trying to evangelize them. John likely remembers me and a few men from the church street preaching in front of the Catholic church in Somerset as they held their annual Garden Party (which featured beer and gambling). This was how the church raised funds to operate for the year. Years later, after actual exposure to Catholics, I moderated my views on Catholics, grudgingly admitting they were Christians, The Baptist in me took a long time to die.

I enjoyed hearing from John. I know he’s disappointed in me, but I have many fond memories of our years in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

February 26, 2026
Short Stories: The Sleeping Squirrel Hunter

Bruce Gerencser, Somerset Baptist Church, 1987

I pastored Somerset Baptist Church in Mt Perry, Ohio, for eleven years in the 1980s and 1990s. Located in the Appalachian foothills, the church was surrounded by beautiful scenery, dusty country roads, stripper oil wells, illegal pot growers, and farms.

One family had a large farm a few miles away from the church. The mom and her three children attended church, but the dad did not. I was a hunter at the time. The dad gave me an open invitation to hunt on their land.

One sunny fall day, I decided to go squirrel hunting by myself on the aforementioned land. I walked the rolling hills for what seemed forever before finding a place to sit in the woods. My gun of choice that day was a bolt-action Mossberg .410 shotgun — a gun I bought for myself when I was twelve.

I plopped myself on the leaf-littered ground and leaned up against a huge tree. I thought that this would be a great spot for spotting squirrels. Long days and short nights had their way with me, and before long, I fell sound asleep. A while later, I was stirred by chipmunks running over and around me. As I lifted my head and looked off into the distance, imagine my surprise to see two foxes intently watching me. What a beautiful sight — breathtaking. Eventually, the foxes ran off, as did the chipmunks.

No squirrels were killed on this day or any other thereafter. I became increasingly uncomfortable with hunting, especially killing animals for no other reason than that I could. I no longer had the bloodlust necessary to kill wild animals. Photography became my new weapon of choice, “shooting” animals without killing them.

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

August 20, 2025
Short Stories: The Day the Preacher Almost Killed a Drug Dealer

Our hillbilly mansion. We lived in this 720-square-foot mobile home for five years, all eight of us.

I was the pastor of Somerset Baptist Church in southeast Ohio for eleven years. The church had grown rapidly in the mid-1980s, but by 1988, attendance had declined, we stopped our bus ministry, and started a tuition-free Christian school for church children. To save the church money, I bought a 12’x60′ trailer for our family to live in, and parked it fifty feet from the church building. This was the first home that was ours.

Our son Jaime, and our two girls, Bethany and Laura.

One day, we found out that a stray female dog had gotten underneath the church building and given birth to a bunch of puppies. The dog warden picked the mother and her pups. We kept one of the puppies and named it Bear. This was long before my view on animal care changed. Bear was primarily an outside dog. He loved to run free, and since we lived in the country, Bear was free to roam the countryside. One day, Bear came home bleeding profusely from his head. I found out that the drug dealer up the road from us had shot Bear with a .22 caliber rifle. (His children tattled on him.) Fortunately, thanks to the small caliber of the bullet, Bear survived. If I remember correctly, the veterinarian bill was $120. Cheap, compared to today. Our vet charges $90 for an office visit. One of our cats recently had an eye infection. Cost? $194.

Nathan, Jaime, and Jason Gerencser, Somerset Baptist Church, 1989

My young children witnessed all of this, including what happened next. Down the dirt road came the drug dealer in his car. In a fit of homicidal rage, I stopped him in the middle of the road, intending to beat the shit out of him. He was bigger than me, but that didn’t matter. He started to get out of his car as I was screaming at him. I was sure we were going to duke it out. However, because my wife and children were standing nearby, I stopped myself and walked away. At the time, I credited the Holy Spirit for keeping me from murdering my neighbor. Today, I know that reason overcame my irrationality; that the future beckoned me from the present. If I had acted on my rage, I would have either ended up in jail or left my children fatherless. If I learned nothing on that day, it is this: Walk away. Never let anger overcome me and determine what I do next. I have had to learn this lesson over and over and over again.

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

August 13, 2025
Short Stories: When the Baptists Bought the Methodist Cemetery

In July 1983, I started a new Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church in Somerset, Ohio. Our first service was held in a storefront building we rented for $100. A few months later, we rented the second floor of what was called the Landmark Building. Attendance growth was slow. By the summer of 1985, our average attendance was 50. To facilitate our expansion, we bought an abandoned United Methodist Church for $5,000. Built in 1831, the building was typical of Methodist churches built in the nineteenth century.

Over the next few years, Somerset Baptist grew to over 200 in attendance. Some of the members who attended the Methodist church when it was open were worried about our growth. Why? When we bought the Methodist building, it came with a cemetery, one that contained some of the early settlers of the area. The cemetery was a wreck, littered with toppled tombstones or stones that didn’t belong to any particular grave. We cleaned everything up, mowing the grass as needed. We were, in every way, good citizens.

Some of the people who formerly attended the Methodist church became worried that we were going to pull up the tombstones and turn the cemetery into a parking lot. They demanded we turn the cemetery over to the township, threatening us with a lawsuit if we didn’t submit. I remember being perplexed at the time. We hadn’t done anything with the cemetery other than maintain it (at our own cost).

Eventually, the township agreed to take over the cemetery. I told township commissioners that they would have to fence the cemetery and pay us for mowing the grass, which they agreed to do. And with that, the Methodists avoided the Baptists paving over the graves of former members and community residents. I never understood their paranoia over something we never would have done. Yes, we needed more parking, but turning the cemetery into a parking lot was never an option. Instead, we expanded the parking near the church building and encouraged healthy members to park along the road in front of the church and cemetery. Problem solved. 🙂

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

August 10, 2025
From Evangelicalism to Atheism — Part Three
Creamery Road, Zanesville, Ohio

Originally Published in 2015. Edited and Expanded.

I am often asked, when did you first begin to doubt? This is not an easy question for me to answer. As I look back over my life, there were many instances where I had doubts about certain theological or political beliefs. If there is one constant about life, it is change. Over time, our understanding, beliefs, and ideologies change. Sometimes, the change is so subtle that we are not really aware of it until we look back on our lives years later. Anyone who says that he has never changed his beliefs — and I know several pastors who say this about themselves — is either intellectually lazy, a liar, or living in denial.

Every preacher leaves Bible college with a borrowed theology. His theology is the theology that his parents, church, pastor, and college professors taught him. He believes what he believes because of the influence of others. Only when he is free of these influences does he begin to develop his own theological beliefs.

I have always been an avid student and reader. One of the frustrating things about the health problems I have is that I can no longer read as I used to. For many years, it was not uncommon for me to read 500 or more pages a week of theological and biographical texts. To this day, I rarely read fiction. Over the course of twenty-five years in the ministry, I accumulated a large library of books. These books were my constant companions and friends. When I left the ministry in 2003, I sold off my theological library on eBay.

While I learned many things as a student at Midwestern Baptist College, most of my theological education came from the countless hours I spent reading theological books, the Bible, and studying for my sermons. It was in the study that I began to come to theological conclusions different from what I had been taught by my parents, former churches, former pastors, and college professors. The most dramatic theological changes took place while I was pastor of Somerset Baptist Church in Somerset, (later Mt. Perry) Ohio.

I started the Somerset Baptist Church in July of 1983 and pastored the congregation for eleven years. At that time, I was a typical Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) pastor and remained so until the Jack Hyles scandal rocked the IFB world in 1986. As I waded through the Hyles sewer, I began to question the gospel preached by many IFB pastors and churches. Noted preachers such as Jack Hyles, Curtis Hutson, and the preachers associated with the Sword of the Lord, preached a truncated gospel, believing that repentance was a change of mind and not a change of conduct. Simply put, the unconverted sinner was against Jesus and now he was for him. Around this time, John MacArthur came out with his seminal book, The Gospel According to Jesus. MacArthur attacked the easy-believism gospel preached in many Evangelical/Baptist churches. MacArthur stated that repentance was not only a change of mind but also a change of behavior. If there was no turning from sin, then there was no true repentance, and without repentance, there was no salvation.

The Hyles scandal, my careful assessment of the gospel preached by many in the IFB church movement, and MacArthur’s book, led me to conclude that the gospel I had been preaching was wrong. I began preaching a gospel that demanded sinners turn from their sins. I believed that if Jesus was not Lord of all your life, then he was not Lord at all. I believed that if people said they were Christians, then they should act like it. Unless unregenerate sinners were willing to turn from their sin and fully embrace Jesus, there was no salvation for them.

In the late 1980s, I began to reconsider my eschatological beliefs. I was taught dispensational, pre-tribulational, and premillennial eschatology (end times) in college, and every church I attended growing up preached this end-times scheme. As I restudied the various eschatological positions, my beliefs gradually shifted and matured until I embraced post-tribulationalism and amillennialism. At this point, I was clearly theologically wandering outside the boundary of my IFB heritage. This shift in eschatology resulted in some people leaving the church; however, it also attracted new members who held similar eschatological views.

It was also in the late 1980s that my theological beliefs dramatically shifted from the one-point Calvinism (eternal security, once saved always saved) of the IFB church movement to five-point Calvinism. My introduction to Calvinism came through the preaching tapes of Rolfe Barnard, a former Southern Baptist and Sword of the Lord evangelist who died in the late 1960s. Barnard’s sermons were powerful declarations of the gospel according to Calvinism. As I listened to these tapes, it was like a light went on in my head. For a time, I was angry because I thought those who had taught me theology had lied to me. Why had no one ever told me about Calvinism? All they told me at Midwestern is that they were against Calvinism and anyone caught promoting it would be expelled.

I began devouring books about Calvinism. I opened a book account at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service and bought countless Calvinistic, Puritan, Sovereign Grace Baptist books. I read the books of Puritan/Calvinist authors from the 17th,18th, and 19th centuries. I discovered that Baptists, at one time, were quite Calvinistic, and some of my heroes of the faith, including Charles Spurgeon, were five-point Calvinists. I even learned that there were Calvinists, such as the late Bruce Cummons, pastor of the Massillon Baptist Temple, in the IFB church movement.

From the late 1980s until the early 2000s, I was a committed, zealous five-point Calvinist. My preaching style changed from topical/textual sermons to expository sermons. I stopped giving altar calls as I began transforming the Somerset Baptist Church into a Calvinistic church. This move cost me 99% of my IFB pastor friends, a handful of church members, along with almost all of my Arminian friends.

For several years, I published a newsletter called The Sovereign Grace Reporter. I sent the newsletter to hundreds of IFB pastors, and this caused quite a shit-storm. Surprisingly, Polly’s uncle, the late James Dennis, pastor of the IFB Newark Baptist Temple, was quite supportive. Keith Troyer, then pastor of Fallsburg Baptist Church, was also quite supportive. I would later be accused of leading Keith astray with the pernicious doctrines of John Calvin. (At the time, I considered Keith my best friend.)

Probably by now, some readers are wondering, Why the history lesson, Bruce? I think it is important for me to establish several things:
- I was an avid reader of books
- I was an avid student of whatever subject I was reading about
- I was willing to go wherever the evidence led me
- I was willing to change my beliefs even if it materially cost me or made me unpopular
- Truth mattered more to me than being accepted by my peers, friends, or family
These things are still true today, though I can no longer read like I once did.

In my pastoring days, my colleagues in the ministry, friends, and parishioners loved me for these traits. They applauded my willingness to be true to the Word of God, even if they disagreed with me. Now these same people think I read and study too much. I have been told that the reason I am an atheist is because of books (and there is some truth in this statement)! If I would only stop reading all these books and just read THE BOOK, all would be well, one former parishioner told me.

Just as the leopard can’t change its spots, I can’t stop reading and studying. Sixty-two years ago, my mother created an intellectual monster when she taught me to read. She wanted her eldest son to be like her, a devourer of literature, a person who valued truth above the approbation of men. I owe her a great debt of gratitude.

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.
July 25, 2024
An Example of How I Indoctrinated Children as an IFB Pastor

Bruce Gerencser, street preaching, Crooksville, Ohio, with his young son Jaime.

I pastored the Somerset Baptist Church in Mt. Perry, Ohio for eleven years, from 1983-1994. I started the church in a storefront with 16 people. The church later grew to more than 200 people. In 1989, after stopping our multi-county bus ministry due to costs, I started a tuition-free non-chartered Christian school for church children.

For five years, Polly and I, along with a handful of dedicated church members, got up early each morning and made our way to Somerset Baptist Academy (SBA) to teach our church’s children. Best described as a one-room schoolhouse, SBA had fifteen students. Most of the students were lacking academically, and though in retrospect some aspects of our school program were lacking, when it came to the basics, we excelled.

During this time, I was introduced to street preaching by Evangelist Don Hardman. Annually, Hardman would come to our church and hold a fifteen-day protracted meeting — the highlight of the church calendar year. Hardman and I later had a falling out due to my embrace of Calvinism. (Please see the series, My Life as a Street Preacher.)

Several times a week, I would take the church children with me to Newark and Zanesville where I preached and they handed out tracts and attempted to evangelize passersby. After a few years of doing this, I stopped due to increasing criticism from locals, suggesting that it was wrong (cultic) for me to use the children in this manner. While I wholeheartedly objected to their assertions — how was selling school raffle tickets any different? — I recognized that their continued participation was harming the church’s “testimony.”

What follows is a story written in 1990 by then Newark Advocate writer Kathy Wesley (behind paywall). The main character in the story is Shawn Nelson, a ninth-grade student at Somerset Baptist Academy.

You Never Realize How Wicked the World Is by Kathy Wesley, a features writer for The Advocate. Published September 16, 1990

NEWARK– The summer breeze is playing tricks with Shawn Nelson’s sandy hair, blowing it to and fro like wheat straw.

The sun is bright, the afternoon warm, the streets full of people. But Shawn sees darkness around the Courthouse Square.

“You never realize how wicked the world is until you get out there and see it,” the 14-year-old says, glancing around. “You see women in these short skirts, and men wearing no shirts at all, yelling and cussing at their kids.”

While many of his friends are back on the public school playground tossing footballs or dribbling basketballs, Shawn is toting his well-worn Bible in a race against evil on the Courthouse Square.

He spends three hours a week on the streets of Newark and Zanesville with 11 classmates from Somerset Baptist Academy, handing out tracts and opening their Bibles to anyone who will listen.

“It’s fun,” he says, shifting his Good Book from one hand to another and fingering his quarter-inch-thick packet of tracts. “You get to show people how to go to heaven.”

A well-dressed woman passes by, brusquely refusing Shawn’s tract, which asks on its front cover, “Where are you going to spend eternity?”

“It’s OK,” he says afterward. “You get used to it.”

Shawn’s been on the streets since May, when a traveling evangelist sold his pastor, the Rev. Bruce Gerenscer [sic], on street ministering. It felt strange at first to walk up to complete strangers and push Bible tracts into their hands, but Shawn is now a pro.

The latter-day apostle knows all the ropes: don’t give people a chance to say no, don’t step off the sidewalk. “As long as you’re on the sidewalk,” he explains, “you’re on public property and no one can arrest you.”

Like the other children, ranging in age from 9 to 16, Shawn has a Bible marked at the two verses they are to show to people who might stop to ask them for spiritual guidance: John 3:16 (” For God so loved the world … “) and Revelations [sic] 3:20.

In four months on the street, nobody’s asked Shawn to show them the way to salvation, but he’s ready. He’s in the midst of memorizing his Bible.

“I want to memorize the whole thing,” he says. “That way, when someone asks you a Bible question, you’ll immediately know the answer.”

There’s not a lot of Bible quizzes given on the streets of downtown Newark, but Shawn seems fairly confident already. His answers to questions of faith spill quickly from memory with childlike enthusiasm.

“In the old days religion was different,” he says. “Then men decided they wanted new religions, which had nothing to do with the Bible.”

“The Mormons and Presbyterians, among others, are in trouble with the Bible,” Shawn says. “They believe in a different way to go to heaven. Some say you have to work your way to heaven … but the Bible says the only way to heaven is through the Father.”

He’s not sure what it is to be a Christian, “except that you should obey the Bible and you shouldn’t sin.” But the details of those requirements seem to be a little hazy.

With the exception of his ambition to memorize the Bible, Shawn’s future is likewise fuzzy. He hasn’t thought about a career, although he acknowledges he has a fondness for automobiles and engines.

It’s fun for him to be on the street; he recalls with delight the lemonade a Zanesville street vendor gave him one day. But behind it all is his deadly serious mission.

Unlike his predecessor Paul, who spread the story of Jesus of Nazareth in the streets of downtown Ephesus in the First Century, Shawn doesn’t have to dodge spears and unfriendly government officials. He just has to put up with the rejection of people who walk a half block out of their way to go around him, and the taunts of children his own age who pass on bicycles.

“Sometimes they ride by and they mock us,” Shawn says, “and I don’t like it.”

But not, he says, because they hurt his feelings.

“I don’t like it,” he says quietly, with the firmness of childhood certainty, “because I know they’re going to die and go to hell.”

— end of news story —

Shawn was what I made him. I regret doing so to this day.

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

July 4, 2024
What One Catholic Doctor Taught Me About Christianity

Dr. William Fiorini

Originally posted in 2015

In the 1960s, the Gerencser family moved to California, the land of promise and a pot of gold at the end of every rainbow. Like many who traveled west, my parents found that life in San Diego was not much different from the life they left in rural northwest Ohio. As in Ohio, my Dad worked sales jobs and drove truck. For the Gerencser family, the pot of gold was empty, and three or so years later we left California and moved back to Bryan, Ohio.

While moving to California and back proved to be a financial disaster for my parents, they did find Jesus at Scott Memorial Baptist Church in San Diego — a Fundamentalist church pastored by Tim LaHaye. Both of my parents made professions of faith at Scott Memorial, as did I when I was five years old. From that point forward, the Gerencser family, no matter where we lived, attended an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church.

Not only were my parents Fundamentalist Baptists, they were also members of the John Birch Society. While in California, my Mom actively campaigned for Barry Goldwater, and later, back in Ohio, she campaigned for George Wallace. Right-wing religious and political beliefs were very much a part of my young life, so it should come as no surprise that I turned out to be a fire-breathing right-wing Republican and a Fundamentalist Baptist preacher.

If the Baptist church taught me anything, it taught me to hate Catholics. According to my Sunday School teachers and pastors, and later my college professors and ministerial colleagues, the Catholic church was the whore of Babylon (Revelation 17), a false church, the church of Satan and the Antichrist. I was taught that Catholics believed in salvation by works and believed many things that weren’t found in the Bible; things such as: purgatory, church magisterium, the Pope is the Vicar of Christ, transubstantiation, infant baptism, confirmation, priests not permitted to marry, praying to statutes, worshiping the dead, and worshiping Mary. These things were never put in any sort of historical context for me, so by the time I left Midwestern Baptist College in 1979, I was a certified hater of all things Catholic.

In 1991, something happened that caused me to reassess my view of Catholics. My dogma ran head-on into a Catholic that didn’t fit my narrow, bigoted beliefs. In 1989, our fourth child and first daughter was born. We named her Bethany. Our family doctor was William Fiorini. He operated the Somerset Medical Clinic in Somerset, Ohio, the same town where I pastored an IFB church. Dr. Fiorini was a devout Catholic, a post-Vatican II Catholic who had been greatly influenced by the charismatic revival that swept through the Catholic church in the 1970s and 1980s. He was a kind and compassionate man. He knew our family didn’t have insurance or much money, and more than a few times the treatment slip turned in after a visit said N/C (no charge).

Bethany seemed quite normal at first. It wasn’t until she was sixteen months old that we began to see things that worried us. Her development was slow and she couldn’t walk. One evening, we drove over to Charity Baptist Church in Beavercreek, Ohio to attend a Bible conference. The woman watching the nursery asked us about Bethany having Down syndrome. Down syndrome? Our little girl wasn’t retarded. How dare this woman even suggest there was something wrong with our daughter.

Bethany continued to struggle, reaching development stages months after infants and toddlers typically do. Finally, we went to see Dr. Fiorini. He suggested that we have Bethany genetically tested. We took her to Ohio State University Hospital for the test, and a few weeks later, just days before Bethany’s second birthday and the birth of our daughter Laura, we received a phone call from Dr. Fiorini. He told us the test results were back and he wanted to talk to us about them. He told us to come to his office after he finished seeing patients for the day and he would sit down and talk with us about the test results.

The test showed that Bethany had Down syndrome. Her Down syndrome features were so mild that the obstetrician missed the signs when she was born. Here we were two years later finding out that our oldest daughter had a serious developmental disability. Our Catholic doctor, a man I thought was a member of the church Satan built and headed for Hell, sat down with us, and with great love and compassion shared the test results. He told us that many miscarriages are fetuses with Down syndrome, and that it was evident that God wanted to bless us with a special child like Bethany. He answered every question and treated us as he would a member of his own family.

This Catholic didn’t fit my narrow, bigoted picture of what a Catholic was. Here was a man who loved people, who came to an area that had one of the highest poverty and unemployment rates in Ohio, and started a one-doctor practice. (He later added a Nurse practitioner, a nun who treated us when we couldn’t get in to see the doctor.) He worked selflessly to help everyone he could. On more than one occasion, I would pass him on the highway as his wife shuttled him from Zanesville to Lancaster — the locations of the nearest hospitals. Often, he was slumped over and asleep in the passenger’s seat. He was the kind of doctor who gave me his home phone number and said to call him if I ever needed his help. He told us there was no need to take our kids to the emergency room for stitches or broken bones. He would gladly stitch them up, even if we didn’t have an appointment.

Dr. Fiorini wasn’t perfect. One time, he almost killed me. He regularly treated me for throat infections, ear infections, and the like. Preaching as often as I did, I abused my voice box and throat. I also have enlarged adenoids and tonsils, and I breathe mostly through my mouth. As a result, I battled throat and voice problems my entire preaching career. One day, I came to see Dr. Fiorini for yet a-n-o-t-h-e-r throat infection. He prescribed an antibiotic and told me to take it easy. He knew, like himself, I was a workaholic and would likely ignore his take-it-easy advice. Take the drug, wait a few weeks, and just like always I would be good as new. However, this time it didn’t work. Over two months, as I got sicker and sicker, he tried different treatments. Finally, he did some additional testing and found out I had mononucleosis; the kissing disease for teens, a deadly disease for a thirty-four-year-old man. Two days later, I was in the hospital with a 104-degree fever, a swollen spleen and liver, and an immune system on the verge of collapse.

An internist came in to talk with my wife and me. He told us that if my immune system didn’t pick up and fight there was nothing he could do. Fortunately, my body fought back and I am here to write about it. My bout with mononucleosis dramatically altered my immune system, making me susceptible to bacterial and viral infections. A strange result of the mononucleosis was that my normal body temperature dropped from 98.6 to 97.0. I lost 50 pounds and was unable to preach for several months.

Once I was back on my feet, Dr. Fiorini apologized to me for missing the mononucleosis. I was shocked by his admission. He showed me true humility by admitting his mistake. I wish I could say that I immediately stopped hating Catholics and condemning them to Hell, but it would be several years before I finally came to the place where I embraced everyone who called themselves a Christian. In the late 1990s, while pastoring Our Father’s House in West Unity, Ohio, I embraced what is commonly called the social gospel. Doctrine no longer mattered to me. Moving from a text-oriented belief system, I began to focus on good works. Tell me how you live. Better yet, show me; and in the showing, a Catholic doctor taught me what it really meant to be a Christian.

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

April 14, 2024
Short Stories: The Green Station Wagon

$200 beater. Polly HATED this car.

In July of 1983, Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) preacher Bruce Gerencser, his wife, Polly, and their two young boys, aged four and two, moved from Buckeye Lake, Ohio to Somerset to start a new IFB church. I would remain pastor of Somerset Baptist Church until we moved to San Antonio, Texas in March 1994 so I could become the co-pastor of Community Baptist Church in Elmendorf.

Over the eleven years I spent pastoring Somerset Baptist, we owned all sorts of automobiles — most of them cheap beaters or cars given to us by congregants. Every one of these cars has a story to tell. (Please see I Did It For You Jesus — Crank Windows and Vinyl Floor Mats.) One such car is the green Ford station wagon in the picture above.

John Nelson, a congregant who lived down the hill from the church with his wife and four sons (who later would attend our Christian academy), was what you would call a “wheeler and dealer.” John has been running a perpetual yard sale for decades. His father owned a junkyard in nearby Saltillo. Over the years, I bought or traded for cars from John. One such car was the green station wagon. If I remember right, I traded John a Chevy Caprice I had purchased from another church family for the station wagon. Polly hated this car the most of the 50+ cars I/we have owned over the years. I mean really, really, really hated the car. My three oldest sons hated the car too. Let me explain.

The station wagon was a huge car — common of the “boats” manufactured in the 1970s. Personally, I loved big cars — the bigger the better. Polly, however, did not. Not that what she liked or disliked mattered. I was officially in charge of all things auto-related — from purchases to repairs to sales. Polly oh-so-fondly remembers days when I left the house with one car, only to return home later that day with a different one. She never, ever said a word, but I have to think that she more than once thought the Baptist equivalent of “what the fuck” when I drove up with a new rolling wreck.

As you can see from the photo, the station wagon had an ugly green paint job. The car had been repainted by hand by a previous owner. Its paint really made the car stand out in a parking lot, much to the embarrassment of my family.

Typically, I looked at potential automobiles from one of two perspectives: looks and mechanical soundness. This car looked awful, but it was mechanically sound. I drove it all over southeast Ohio (and West Virginia on road trips) until I got bored with the car and traded it for something different.

Polly hated taking the car anywhere. At the time, she thought that the station wagon was a rolling advertisement for our poverty; not the kind of car a preacher’s wife should be forced to drive. Ever the trooper, she said nothing.

While Polly disliked driving the car, it was our sons who couldn’t stand the sight of the station wagon. At the time, our two oldest sons were enrolled at Licking County Christian Academy in Heath, Ohio. A ministry of the Newark Baptist Temple — an IFB church pastored by the late Jim Dennis (Polly’s uncle) — LCCA was a non-accredited school populated primarily with children from middle-class and affluent Christian families. The Gerencser children were among the poorest students to attend the school.

LCCA was thirty miles from our home. A Bible church near our home, Maranatha Bible Church, then pastored by Bob Shaw, bussed children to LCCA every day, but my request to let our children ride their bus was denied. I suspected then, and still do today, that the church and its pastor didn’t want our poor munchkins intermingling with theirs. So, we dutifully drove 60 miles a day to Heath to drop off and pick up our children from school. Later, a girl in our church started attending LCCA. We would take the children to LCCA in the morning, and her father would pick them up after school on his way home from work. He, too, drove a junker.

My sons have told me that they were embarrassed to see me pull up in the school parking lot driving the green station wagon. Other parents drove new or late-model automobiles. Not their preacher dad. Character building? Perhaps. I know this much. Neither of them drives their children to and from school with autos that look anything like the station wagon. Not going to happen. And these days, we drive a 2020 Ford Edge. No clunkers to be found in our driveway. If I came home with such a car today, I suspect the top of my head would be sporting an indentation left from a Lodge cast iron skillet. Polly is definitely no longer passive when it comes to making car-buying decisions.

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

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

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

April 9, 2024