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What Should I Do? There’s No Church in My Town that Teaches the “Truth”

biblical truth

The United States is awash in Evangelical churches. I live in the rural northwest Ohio community of Ney — population 356. There are seven churches within five miles of my house, and six of them are Evangelical. Surely Ney, Ohio, has all the churches it needs, right? It does, but back in my Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church-planting days, I would have looked at the religious demographic for Ney and concluded that the town didn’t have a church preaching the “truth.” You see, the Church of God, the other Church of God, and yet another Church of God, the garden-variety Evangelical church, the Methodist church, the charismatic church, and the Catholic church all preach from the same Bible as IFB churches do, but, in my mind at the time, none of them is true to the faith once delivered to the saints as an IFB church would be. So, with God on their sides and a wind of prayer at their backs, Evangelical church planters will go to communities already overrun with congregations and start new churches. Most of their “new” members will come from other churches. That’s the dirty little secret Evangelicals don’t like to talk about: that most church growth comes from transfers; people moving from one sect/church to another). “Look at how God is ‘blessing’ our new church. We are growing by leaps and bounds!” Yet, for the most part, these new members are most likely disgruntled people poached from other churches. (The largest church in Defiance County, where I live, is Xperience Church, an Evangelical congregation of almost 1,000 people that recently celebrated its tenth anniversary. The vast majority of the church’s members are transfers from other churches or people who were already Christians. This church is predatory, as are most church plants.) Of course, in the IFB church movement, it is generally believed that Catholics, mainline Christians, and charismatics are not even Christians — that they are following a false Jesus — so it’s okay to steal them from their non-IFB churches.

Calvinists, in particular, are noted for searching far and wide for churches that teach the gospel according to John Calvin. Back in my Calvinistic days, I had congregants who drove 30-45 minutes to our church just so they could sit under a man who preached the “true” gospel. In 1994, I became the co-pastor of Community Baptist Church in Elemendorf, Texas. The church was stridently Fundamentalist and Calvinistic. We had people who had moved all the way from Michigan and Ohio just so they could be members of a church that taught the “truth.” Think about how many thousands of churches they passed on their way to San Antonio, Texas. None of them preached the “truth”? There were several members who believed that the Christian gospel = the five points of Calvinism; that professing Christians who were not Calvinists were likely false Christians; that all the great Arminian preachers of the twentieth century were false prophets who preached an errant, heretical gospel. At Community Baptist, “truth” mattered. This led to numerous squabbles over doctrine; you know, one “truth” battling another “truth,” both believing they were right, straight from God himself.

According to the Bible, Pilate said to Jesus, “What is Truth?” You would think that after 2,000 years, Christians would have the answer to that question figured out; that by now they would be united around ONE LORD, ONE FAITH, ONE BAPTISM. Instead, Evangelicals fight among themselves over the slightest of doctrinal differences. Much blood has been spilled over how a person is saved and the method by which he is baptized. Evangelicals fight over eschatology, ecclesiology, pneumatology, soteriology, and a host of other “ologies.” Evangelicals tend to be literalists who believe the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. In their minds, the Bible is a divine roadmap, a blueprint or handbook for life. Thus, every jot or tittle matters; every word has divine meaning. That’s why many Evangelicals believe certain Bible translations are “true” and others just contain the “truth.” On the extreme fringes of Evangelicalism, you have IFB churches that believe the King James Bible is the “pure” inerrant Words of God. Over the years, I heard several preachers say that if the person who led you to Jesus used any Bible but the KJV, it was very possible that you weren’t even saved. In their minds, the KJV of the Bible was some sort of magic book, supernatural in nature, chucked by God over the rampart of Heaven 412 years ago.

It is for these reasons and others that Evangelicals continue to start new churches in communities already saturated with Christian churches. Why, even in the Baptist Belt, new churches are being planted. Why? I ask. Isn’t everyone in the deep South already saved? The real truth is that Evangelical church planting is much like opening a new hamburger joint. There’s a McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Sonic, Jack in the Box, Carl’s Jr, and Five Guys in town, yet the community “needs” yet another hamburger restaurant. So it is with church planting. Evangelical church planters convince themselves that such-and-such town NEEDS a new church — an Evangelical one. When a new hamburger restaurant comes to town, where does most of its business come from? Other restaurants. People have a fixed amount of discretionary money, so for a new restaurant to grow and thrive, it must poach patrons from other restaurants. All the new restaurant does is weaken the other ones. So it is with churches. They are predatory in nature. Rarely, if ever, do you find congregations that started with new converts. For all their talk about saving souls, Evangelical churches rarely increase their attendance through “winning the lost.” Why do the necessary hard work of winning souls when you can just steal members from somewhere else?

To answer the “what should I do” question, I say this: stop looking for Theological Nirvana®. It doesn’t exist.  I don’t know of a community that needs more churches. How about trying to make one of the churches that already exist better? But, Bruce, God told me to start a new church! Sure, he did. As a former church planter, I know better. Church planters start new churches because they need the Jesus Buzz® that comes from planting a new church; that feeling of everything being new. People seek out new churches because they too are looking for a Jesus Buzz®. New churches are exciting. When Evangelicals can’t “feel” the Lord like they used to, they look for that feeling elsewhere. Where better to “feel” the presence and power of Jesus than in a new church? The problem, of course, is that new churches will one day become old, established churches, just like the ones people left years before. That’s the nature of the human experience, be it marriages, churches, or hamburgers.

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.

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Is it Ever Okay to Lie?

pinocchio lying

I grew up in a religious culture where lying (bearing false witness) was always considered a sin. It was never, ever right to tell a lie, even if the ends justified the means. This was more of an ideal than anything else. Pastors and congregants alike lied. I quickly learned that despite all their talk about moral/ethical absolutes, my pastors and other church leaders would lie if the situation demanded it. Despite frequent condemnations of situational morality/ethics, the Christians I looked up to would, on occasion, lie. One example that vividly comes to mind happened when I was fifteen and attended Trinity Baptist Church in Findlay, Ohio. As many Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches of the 1970s did, Trinity Baptist had a large bus ministry. Each week the church’s buses brought hundreds of people to church. Many of these buses were rambling wrecks, yet parents rarely gave a second thought to letting their children ride the buses. Most parents, I suspect, saw the three or so hours their children were at church as a respite from caring for them.

Church buses had to be annually inspected by the Ohio State Highway Patrol. Each bus had to pass a mechanical and safety inspection. One item of importance was the tires. Trinity Baptist was a fast-growing church of working-class people that always seemed to be short of money. Properly outfitting each bus with safe tires would require a lot of cash, so the church decided, instead, to lie about the tires. In the spring of 1972, it was once again time to have the buses inspected. Several of them needed to have their tires replaced. Instead of replacing the tires, the church outfitted one bus with new tires and took it to the Patrol Post for inspection. After passing inspection, the bus was driven to a garage owned by a church member so the new tires could be removed and put on the next bus needing inspection. This was done for every bus that had tires that would not pass inspection. What church leaders were doing, of course, was a lie. This particular lie was justified by arguing that running the buses and winning souls for Jesus were more important than following Caesar’s law. Over the next thirty-five years, I would see similar lies told time and again, with the justification always being that God’s work must go on and souls needed saving. But what about not bearing false witness? I learned that for all their preaching on situational morality/ethics, Evangelical pastors and church leaders were willing to tell a fib if it advanced their cause. In their minds, the end indeed justified the means.

Years ago, I pastored one man who believed it was ALWAYS wrong to lie. One time, a woman asked him if he liked her new hat. Wanting to always tell the truth, the man told her that he didn’t like the hat and thought it was ugly. Needless to say, he hurt his friend’s feelings. When asked by his wife whether an outfit looked nice on her or made her look fat, he would never consider what his wife was actually asking. Fundamentalist to the core, all that mattered to him was telling the truth. However, all his wife wanted to know is whether he accepted and loved her, as-is. Instead of understanding this, he dished out what he called “brutal honesty.” Needless to say, this man routinely offended his family and friends.

One time, after a blow-up over his truth-telling, I asked him, “Suppose you lived in Germany in World War II and harbored Jews in your home. One day, the Nazis come to your door and ask if you are harboring any Jews. Knowing that answering YES would lead to their deaths, what would you say? Would you lie to protect them?” Astoundingly, he told me that he would either tell the truth (yes) or say nothing at all. In his mind, always telling the truth was paramount even if it meant the death of others. I knew, then, that I had no hope of getting him to see that there might be circumstances where telling a lie was acceptable; that sometimes a lie serves the greater good.

Bruce, did you ever lie as a pastor? Of course I did. Let me give you one example. The churches I pastored dedicated babies — the Baptist version of baptizing infants. Couples would stand before the congregation and promise before the church and God that they would raise their newborns up in the fear and admonition of God. Most of these parents lied, but then so did I. I would hold their babies in my arms and present them to the church, saying, isn’t he or she beautiful? when I believed then, and still do, that most newborns are ugly. Our firstborn came forth with wrinkly, scaly skin and a cone-shaped head — thanks to the doctor’s use of forceps. “Beautiful,” he was not!  I lied to the parents about their babies because I knew no parent wanted to hear the “truth.” The parents lied about their commitment to church and God because that’s what everyone in attendance wanted to hear — especially grandparents.

While I generally believe that telling the truth is a good idea, I don’t think this is an absolute. There are times when telling a lie is preferable to telling the truth. Let me share an example of when I should have lied and didn’t. The church I co-pastored in Texas held an annual preaching conference. I preached at this conference the year before the church hired me as their co-pastor. When discussing who we were going to ask to preach at the upcoming conference, I suggested a preacher friend of mine from Ohio. I thought it would be a great opportunity for him. He gladly accepted our invitation. One night after he preached, my friend asked me to critique his preaching. I thought, oh don’t ask me to do this. My friend had several annoying habits, one of which was failing to make eye contact with those to whom he was preaching. He insisted on me telling him what I thought of his preaching, so with great hesitation, I did. After I was done, I could tell that I had deeply wounded my friend, so much so that he talked very little to me the rest of the conference. Sadly, our friendship did not survive my honesty. Yes, he asked for it, but I really should have considered whether he would benefit from me telling the truth. I should have, instead, recommended several books on preaching or encouraged him to use the gifts God had given him. Instead, I psychologically wounded him by being “brutally honest.”  Twenty or so years ago, I tried to reestablish a connection with him. I sent him an email, asking him how he was doing.  He replied with one word: FINE.

As a professional photographer, I was often asked for photography advice. I learned that people didn’t really want my opinion about their latest, greatest photographs. Instead of telling them how bad their photos were, I chose, instead, to encourage them to practice and learn the various functions of their cameras. (Most people never take their cameras off AUTO.) I told one person that I didn’t critique the work of others. There’s no such thing as a perfect photograph, and taking photographs is all about capturing moments in time. As a professional, how my photos looked mattered to me, but I knew that most people would never invest time and money into becoming skilled photographers. Often, they didn’t have the same passion for photography as I did. (I stopped doing photography work two years ago due to my loss of muscle strength and dexterity. I sold all of my equipment, one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.) They wrongly thought that buying an expensive camera would automatically make their photos look good. It’s the photographer’s skill, not his equipment, that makes the difference. I tried to encourage others, even if it meant, at times, I stretched the truth a bit. I suspect all of us look for affirmation and encouragement instead of “brutal honesty.”

Are you an “absolute” truth-teller? Do you believe it is ALWAYS wrong to lie, or do you believe there are circumstances when lying serves the greater good or causes the least harm? If you are a pastor/former clergy person, did you ever lie? Don’t lie!  Please share your thoughts in the comment section.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Christians Say the Darnedest Things: The Bible is ALWAYS Right

bible inerrancy

1.“Our basic assumption: God rules the world.” — God is a personal God, He can act in exceptional ways (“miracles”) if he chooses.

2. “God is consistent.” — God cannot contradict Himself, what He reveals through Scripture and how He chooses to act are eternally consistent.

3. “The Bible is the word of God.” — The Bible declares itself trustworthy and inspired by God Himself, we can rest on its inerrancy and authority.

4. “God gave human beings dominion, so scientific investigation is legitimate.” — Modern science was berthed in assumptions of a biblical worldview.

5. “Scientists’ formulations are not the word of God, but human reflections concerning evidence in the world.” — Unlike the Bible, science does not claim to be unchanging and even well-established theories are fallible in principle.

6. “Though the Bible is infallible, all later human interpretations of the Bible are fallible.” — There is a critical distinction between what the Bible says and what any human interpreter believes it says.

7. “Apparent discrepancies between the Bible and science are discrepancies between fallible human interpretations of the Bible and fallible scientific pronouncements, based on fallible interpretations of evidence from the world.” — Human fallibility, extends to interpreting both the Bible and scientific findings.

8. “An apparent discrepancy needs further investigation.” — When we do come across something that appears to contradict, it can be attributed either to a mistake in biblical interpretation, in scientific reasoning, or both.

9. “The Bible has a practical priority, because of its design by God.” — The Psalms speak of a real impact of the word of God on our daily lives, not just abstract theology.

10. “When there is an apparent discrepancy, we should see whether there are competing explanations from scientists or from Bible interpreters.” — Not unlike theology, science is rarely limited to a lone scientific opinion.

11. “The Bible gives us sufficient instruction for the next practical step in obeying God, even when we have many unanswered questions about the apparent discrepancies.” — Ultimately, God’s grace helps us settle into those questions we have that we do not find explicitly answered in His Word.

— Vern Poythress, author and professor of New Testament interpretation at Westminster Theological Seminary, The Christian Post, Miracles, scientific irregularities may point to biblical truth, theologian says, May 16, 2022

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.

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Man Says He Found Truths in The Bible That He KNOWS I Haven’t Seen Before

bible secrets revealed

A few years ago, a former Jehovah’s Witness sent me an email detailing how he had found Biblical “truths”  that he was certain that I have never seen before. He wants to “share” these truths with me. No thanks. Having been mined for over 2,000 years for the minutest of truths, the bible holds no more “new” truths. This man, once a card-carrying member of a Christian sect, supposedly reset his beliefs to zero and read the Bible in such a way that none of his past beliefs and biases played a part in his finding these “new” truths. Unless this man had a lobotomy or had his mind wiped in Men in Black fashion, I am quite sure he was unable to jettison past beliefs, biases, and hermeneutics. All of us are products of our environments, tribal influences, and pasts. While I am now an atheist, I know that my Evangelical past, to some degree, still informs my thinking about the Bible, religion, and morality. While I now have other tools at my disposal as I “think” about the world and my place in it, it would be less than honest for me to say that my mind is now free of everything that I was taught and experienced over the course of fifty years in the Christian church.

I am sure this man “thinks” his mind is a clean slate, but it’s not. The “new” truths that he thinks he has found are in a book written, collated, and ordered by men. From translations to verse numberings, the Bible is a monument to the works of men. It is evident that this man thinks the Bible is some sort of divine book. He says that his path to “truth” began with Proverbs 2:2-6:

So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding.

Saying that he is allowing GOD alone to teach him, this man is rereading the Bible. Shouldn’t he, first, determine if this God even exists?  How about starting in Genesis 1-3 with its plurality of Gods? Regardless of how much mind-washing has been done, it is impossible to read the Bible and come to some sort of cohesive, unified “truth.”  Christian sects have been trying to do so for two thousand years. Their work has resulted in the birth of thousands of Christian sects, each believing that their “truth” is THE truth.

Here’s an excerpt from this man’s email:

this may be a big god damn waste of time…but i feel compelled to reach out to you anyway.

i have similar background as you in that i spent a shitload of my lifetime wrapped up in an organized ‘christian’ religion where the mantra basically was, we’re right, everyone else is wrong. go out there and bring in those lost sheep to increase our numbers!

i was fully BRAINWASHED into their mode of thinking – and i was a ‘company man’ – staunch, exemplary and unmoving in its doctrines, so near their top ranking status of ELDER – my elderhood was imminent at any time.

but…then it happened…without going into all the gory details – my eyes were opened to the filth and corruption that made up this organization…full well knowing that if THIS organization had as much crap and outright debauchery contained within it, there is no fucking truth, there is no fucking right religion it’s all a fucking big load of stinking garbage in EVERY religion EVERYWHERE..

my wife and my kids walked away from it and anything else that smelled like IT or even slightly resembled IT. i was in IT as an adult for 22 years and i actually came to be within IT via my parent’s decision to do so – thought I bounced around doing everything BUT IT until i got married and started having kids.

the kicker is…there was something about the BOOK that I could not let go of. to me, it just seemed there was something WAY deeper than what any ‘christian’ religion had their wits of understanding around…and, it was surely EASY to see that no one religion was practicing what it truly said. because if one DID? well…for example, christ said unequivocally without exception – to: LOVE YOUR ENEMIES.

that bit right there? disqualifies EVERY FUCKING organized ‘CHRISTIAN’ religion out there. Every one of them. Period,

but – like I said – as I read it by myself or when I was in IT during a meeting (of course always seeing the way THEY would twist and take shit out of context to fit THEIR doctrine)…there was stuff that I could not just throw away.

i basically did a last-ditch ultimatum…and I did it to GOD, right to his FUCKING FACE…I said as I was in my office – sometime after the official denunciation and leaving of IT (Jehovah’s Witnesses by the way)…

i am going to start from scratch and read this one more time…one more time…and if i cannot get out of it anything that i can sink my life into? i am DONE. you WILL hate my guts. I WILL be a BAD nightmare and I will TRASH ANYTHING/EVERYTHING remotely resembling what is called ‘christian’…as to me IT WAS ALL BULLSHIT.

bible in hand..at my desk…with tears flowing from my eyes…I read Proverbs 2, honing in on verses 3 -6…

i said – i am starting from SCRATCH. I am coming into this book like i have never read it before. i will not take with me ANY of the doctrines/teachings/festerings of any religion i have leaned an ear to. i will do what it says…i will let GOD give me the understanding. I will NOT ask any pastor, preacher, commentary, book, scholar dipshit, fuckhead…i am going in ALONE…beliefs reset to…

ZERO.

I KNOW NOTHING.

well Bruce – in your website somewhere – I found this:

“Whatever you think God wants you to tell me, I have already heard it.”

I can fully guarantee – that what I have been shown – will line up with NOTHING you have ever heard. some of it is like hiding in plain sight – and upon going into the seeking of it as to hid treasure and found gold…well, that is what it is – i did have to do some work to pull things together

thing is Bruce…there is SO MUCH of it (and I mean NEW STUFF you will not have been exposed to)…I’ll have a hard time figuring where to start.

Here I am, six years later, still unconvinced. Maybe today will be the day a Christian brings new facts that will challenge my unbelief. So far, color me unimpressed.

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.

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You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

The Bible is Not a Fairytale, Every Word is True, and God Cares About the Little People

erin davis

Erin Davis, a writer for the Lies Young Women Believe website, wrote one of the most astounding, delusional, and absurd blog posts I have ever read. Filled with assertions based on THE BIBLE SAYS, Davis’ post reflects how deeply and thoroughly Evangelicalism can negatively affect one’s ability to reason and think.

According to Davis:

The Bible Is Not a Fairy Tale

With giants (1 Sam. 17), strange creatures (Job 40:15), angels (Ps. 91:11), demons (Mark 5), and a God who is mysteriously three in one, sometimes the Bible reads like a children’s fairy tale or Hollywood screenplay. But it isn’t. It’s a history book of events that actually happened to real people. More than that, it’s a book about a very real God.

Every Word of God Proves True

Proverbs 30:5 makes this bold promise:

Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

An easy way to prove the truth found in Scripture is through the genealogies. Let me show you what I mean.

Isaiah 11:1 declares this promise, “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.”

There isn’t a person on the planet that God doesn’t love and care about.

That promise wouldn’t amount to a hill of beans without the genealogy found in Matthew 1:1–17 and again in Luke 3:23–38. This list starts with Abraham and ends with the birth of Christ. Smack dab in the middle we find this gem:

And Jesse the father of David the king (Matt. 1:6).

The branch Isaiah wrote about was Jesus. His words were written 800 years before Christ was born! If we skipped this genealogy, we would miss the wonder of seeing this prophecy fulfilled.

God Cares About the Little People

Ever hear of Mahalalel, Hezron, or Abijah? Probably not, but God has. He made sure their names were listed among the genealogies found in Genesis 5 and Matthew 1. Every single human since Adam has three things in common:

We are made in the image of God (Gen. 1:27).

We are loved by God (Jer. 31:3).

We were designed to be with God for eternity (Eccl. 3:11).

There isn’t a person on the planet that God doesn’t love and care about. The genealogies read like lists of His favorite people.

God  Is Faithful.

Here’s a question I love to ask Christians who are older than me:

“Tell me about that time God let you down.”

I’ve been asking that question for years, almost every chance I get to hang out with people with a gray hair or two. I’ve never met a single person with an answer. Instead they all gush about God’s faithfulness, telling me how time and time again He has shown up in their lives.

Evidently, Davis has not studied the history of the Christian Bible, nor has she read anything about the various textual contradictions and errors found in the Biblical text. I suspect that Davis grew up in and is still a part of a religious tradition that asserts the Bible is a God-given and God-written, inspired, inerrant, and infallible text. Whether the Bible is inspired is a metaphysical claim beyond the scope of rational inquiry, but assertions that the Bible is inerrant and infallible are evidentiary claims that can be investigated. Anyone who has honestly and openly looked at the text of the Bible cannot conclude it is an inerrant text.

Well, Bruce, I have studied this issue and I still believe the Bible is inerrant. To that I say, bullshit. If someone follows the evidence wherever it leads, he or she must conclude that inerrancy cannot be sustained on rational grounds. When people claim that the Bible is inerrant, I always ask them if they have read any of Dr. Bart Ehrman’s books. Most often, the answer I receive is no. For the handful of people who say yes, my response is this: you are letting your presuppositions keep you from seeing things as they are. Biblical scholars of every stripe have concluded that the Bible has textual errors and contractions; that the Bible is internally inconsistent. It is impossible for someone to read Ehrman’s books and still hang on to the belief that the Bible is inerrant. And it is for this reason many Evangelical scholars and pastors say the Bible is inerrant in the original writings (which do not exist).

Davis believes the Bible is “true” because the Bible says it is. This is circular reasoning — a common problem in Evangelical Christianity. Countless people are Christians, all the while believing the Bible is fallible and errant. They recognize that the Bible is a human-written text that points the way to God, not a divine rulebook or blueprint for life. These Christians readily admit that some of what the Bible says is not true, is outdated, or inapplicable for today. While I have problems with how they come to these conclusions, I do find that this view is more intellectually honest than parroting that the Bible is inerrant.

The key to reaching Evangelicals is to get them to see that the Bible is not what they claim it is. Until Evangelicals are willing to consider that they might be wrong; that the Bible might contain errors and contradictions, there’s not much anyone can do to reach them.

Davis states that God cares about the little people. She bases this statement on the fact that numerous unknown people are mentioned in the Bible and, since God wrote the Bible, this is proof that God cares about everyone. Davis sincerely believes that God loves and cares for everyone. She believes this because the Bible says so. Again, eyes-wide-open honesty does not bear out Davis’ claim. Look around. What do you see? Do you see evidence for the belief that God loves and cares for everyone? Of course not. At best, we see a God who is indifferent to the plight of his creation. He steps in from time to time and helps Nana find her car keys, but when it comes to big-ticket issues such as war, violence, sexual assault, starvation, oppression, and Donald Trump, the Christian God is AWOL.

Davis desperately needs to believe that God loves and cares for her. I understand WHY she believes as she does. God loving and caring for Christians is the glue that holds Christianity together. No matter what happens in their lives, Evangelicals believe that God is looking out for them and that “all things work together for good.” This thinking directly conflicts with reality — shit happens, life can suck, and all credit and criticism belong to humans. God/Jesus/Holy Spirit is a fictitious middleman who keeps Evangelicals from seeing life as it is. That’s the beauty of religion. It gives people meaning and purpose, promising life after death. (Please see The Life-Changing Power of the Mythical Jesus and Never Underestimate the Power of Jesus) Believing such delusions allows Evangelicals to evade the harshness of human existence. Sadly, many people think that it is better to believe a lie if it gives them peace and happiness. I don’t fault people who follow this path as long as they keep it to themselves. However, when they drag such nonsense into the public square and de-legitimize the lives of everyone who believes differently, I’m going to challenge, on rational grounds, their beliefs.

Davis concludes her post by saying that God (not any God, only the Evangelical God) is ALWAYS faithful. When Evangelicals talk about the faithfulness of God they mean that God always does what he says he will. If God says he will do ______________ then he always does. Think of all the promises God supposedly made in the Bible. Has God infallibly kept every promise? Of course not. Any cursory examination of the lives of Christians reveals that God is NOT faithful, that he routinely fails to pay child support. When challenged on the God-is-Faithful claim, Evangelicals often respond that just because God hasn’t come through yet, doesn’t mean he won’t come through in the future. Ah yes, God will, someday, likely not today, come through. He’s God and he ALWAYS comes through.

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.

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You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Dear Evangelical Pastor, Why Should I Listen to You?

authority

In this post I use authority and expert interchangeably.

If you have spent significant time in Evangelical churches, you know that the pastor is considered the pope of the church. He is the go-to guy about everything. The pastor takes seriously Paul’s statement, “I became all things to all men.” Not only is the pastor an expert on the Bible and theology, he is also an expert on current events, history, archeology, politics, science, sports, medicine, sex, construction, child-rearing, meal planning, and auto repair.

If the pastor doesn’t know it, it ain’t worth knowing.

Now here is the truth.

Most pastors are barely proficient when it comes to their chosen profession.  Many church members would be surprised to know how little actual Bible training their pastor received while attending an Evangelical college. It should never be assumed that any pastor is adequately trained in understanding and teaching the Bible.  Personally, I am of the opinion that it is almost impossible for pastors to get a proper education about the Bible in Evangelical institutions, due to their ideological bent.

Most pastors know enough Greek to make them dangerous. Few pastors know any Hebrew at all. A parishioner would be mistaken to accept the pastor as the authority on the Bible without inquiring as to WHY he should be accepted as such. Should he be accepted as an authority just because of the position he holds or because the Bible says he must be accepted as such? Perhaps church members need to start asking their pastor, WHY should I listen to you?

No pastor is an oracle who knows everything. His office does not make him an authority. Becoming an authority on a matter requires work, hard work. There are some things I am good at. I work very hard to know what I know and to be able to do what I do. Granted, many of us are good at some things because they come easy for us, but no one should be faulted for that. For example, I am very good at being a pain in the ass. It comes easy for me.

Early in the ministry, I was flattered that people would come to me for advice. I was glad to be the answer man. For many years, I even had an “Ask the Pastor” question time one Sunday night a month. Parishioners could ask me any question they wanted. I answered every question, no matter what the question was. I came off as a man with a vast knowledge of virtually everything. In reality I was like a fart in a forty mile per hour wind. I was five miles wide and one inch deep. In other words, I was a pompous, arrogant, know-little know-it-all.

In the latter years of my time in the ministry, I became less willing to answer questions that were not within the range of my expertise. I’ve had to learn that there is a difference between having an opinion about something and actually knowing about something.  Since leaving the ministry and leaving Christianity, I have worked very hard to fill in some of the glaring knowledge gaps I have. As a pastor, I would pontificate about Darwin, creation, and evolution, yet I didn’t know a damned thing about science. In high school I took earth science and biology. In college I took one science class, a biology class, that had no lab and had a teacher who had no actual science training beyond being able to read the textbook. So science is an area in which I am working very hard to fill in the gaps.

Years ago, a liberal Baptist pastor and I got into a discussion about psychology. At the time, I was an Evangelical. He brought up Maslow. I waxed eloquently about what I had read in a book opposing psychology. The liberal Baptist preacher could tell I didn’t really know anything, so he called my bluff, and then he told me I was full of shit. He was right.

Pastors should stick to what they know. If their calling is to teach and preach, then they owe it to their congregations to be educated about the Bible and to learn communication skills that will allow them to be the best preachers possible. Sadly, over the years, I’ve heard countless preachers preach who were illiterate concerning theology and who had little or no training in public discourse. Awful sermons, to say the least.

Want to talk about the Bible, church history, Evangelicalism, Fundamentalism, tax issues in the ministry, photography, or Windows computers? I’m your man. If you want to talk about gardening, environmental issues, politics, or sports, I am “kinda” your man, depending on the specific subject. Most everything else, I am just a man with an opinion. An intellectual jack of all trades, master of none.

The next time someone speaks as an authority ask yourself, WHY should I accept this person’s word on this matter?” Each of us should think critically about the people to whom we grant authority. In the 1960s young people were challenged to question authority. The pastors of the churches I attended as a youth said, submit to authority. Their authority. I was raised in an environment that frowned upon, and sometimes punished, any challenge to authority. The college I attended used the same methodology. Imagine where we would be today if no one ever questioned or challenged authority.

The Internet has brought us a vast store of information. No longer do we have to take someone’s word for anything. We can investigate a matter and determine if a person is being factual with regard to that matter. Before granting anyone the vaunted position of an authority, it is always wise and prudent to fact-check their claims. Even then, a person we accept as an authority might not be equally authoritative on everything.

Here’s the bottom line. Be careful about those whom you allow to be authorities in your life. WHY should they be granted this noble position of authority? No person can be an authority on everything. Be wary of any man, especially a “holy man,” who passes himself off as a know-it-all. Such a person cannot be trusted.

At the same time, we should not be guilty of showing no respect for authority at all. When people give themselves to learning a particular discipline, they should not be dismissed without reason or cause. I am always amused when people dismiss NT scholar Bart Ehrman out of hand without ever engaging or understanding what he writes. He’s an agnostic, an unbeliever, why should I listen to him? they say.  Regardless of his spiritual state, he IS an expert in the fields he writes about.  Since I am NOT an expert, I must determine if I can trust his expertise. I do. Others don’t. Such is the nature of choosing which experts we will believe.

The same could be said of the science surrounding climate change. Few of us are experts. We must choose which experts we will believe. Personally, my money is on 95% of climate scientists who say global climate change is real. I am aware of the other 5%, but I don’t think they are right. Granted, I am not a science expert, and I am willing to even admit I am poorly trained in science, but I can read. I do have a rational mind that still has a modicum of sharpness that allows me to make an educated choice about which expert I will believe.

How do you decide whom to grant authority to in your life? How do you determine which expert to believe?  Have you ever been deceived by an “expert”? Please share your thoughts in the comment section.

Bruce Gerencser, 66, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 45 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.

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Atheists Like Bart Ehrman Because They Want to Suppress the Truth in Unrighteousness

bart ehrman

According to one commenter on Dr. Michael Kruger’s blog,  The Canon Fodder, the reason atheists like Bart Ehrman is because they want to suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Here’s what a commenter by the name of Grant had to say:

“Jeff, just to add to your thoughts in this, Bart Ehrman has a ready audience of people who want to hear what he’s saying. The world will view him as an authority on the matter, and accept his claims as truth. 1 Timothy 4:3 warns of something similar: “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.”

Ehrman is a teacher who suits the passions of the world: to suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18). Thus, even though someone who refuses to believe the Gospel might spot this hypocrisy of Ehrman’s, rebuking moralizing while doing the same himself, they will likely suppress that truth along with the Truth of the Gospel. Because it suits their passions to do so.

So if we ignored him, Bart Ehrman might “go away” in the sense that we don’t hear so much from him, but he hasn’t really gone anywhere. He wants an adoring audience to validate his unbelief with their attendance to what he teaches as much as they want him to validate their unbelief by him teaching what he does.”

“Very good points. Of course, “agnosticism” and “atheism” are just a smoke-screen for their suppression of the Truth in unrighteousness, and it shows in Bart Ehrman’s hypocrisy. Basically he wants people to believe him, not the Gospel.”

I always love it when Christians tell atheists, agnostics, and humanists the REAL reason they don’t believe. Instead of having to do a bit of intellectual heavy lifting, a Christian like Grant can dismiss a whole class of people with one wave of the proof text hand. According to Grant, the reason atheists read Bart Ehrman is because his writing appeals to their fleshly desires. Atheists are unwilling to hear and understand the TRUTH — “truth” meaning the Bible — so they seek out writers who reinforce their beliefs and opinions about God, Jesus, Christianity, and the Bible. Of course, Christians don’t do that, right? (that’s sarcasm, by the way).

While Grant’s argument might have some merit when it comes to someone who never was a Christian, it falls flat on its face when it comes to people such as myself. I spent 50 years in the Christian church, and I was an Evangelical pastor for 25 years. I spent the majority of my life thinking the Bible was divine truth. Yet, here I am at age of sixty-two, an outspoken atheist and humanist. Could it be that the reason I no longer believe is because I intellectually found Evangelical claims about the Bible, God, and Jesus lacking?

Grant is upset because people such as I believe Bart Ehrman and not the gospel. In his mind, if one believes the gospel then everything else falls into place. Because I do not believe the Evangelical good news, that means I am an Ehrman fanboy. My recommendation of Ehrman’s books couldn’t be because I find them intellectually persuasive, right? Of course not. If I just believed the Bible — well actually if I just believed Grant’s interpretation of the Bible — then I would understand that Ehrman wants to be god in place of Jesus.

In other words, atheists, agnostics, and humanists are stupid. They are being led astray by Bart Ehrman, a false prophet. The answer is to have an old-fashioned Bart Ehrman book burning. Then we can return to reading and believing the only book that matters: the B-i-b-l-e. What’s funny, at least to me, is that Evangelical zealots such as Grant have shelves full of books that reinforce their beliefs and worldview. If the Bible is all an atheist needs to read, why do Evangelicals read so many books that purport to tell them what the Bible teaches? If the King James Version was good enough for the Apostle Paul and good enough for Bruce, shouldn’t it be good enough for Grant?

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.

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Bruce, What if Christianity is True?

pascals wager

“It’s just the ocean playing tricks on us. Just because it looks like we’re on land, and it doesn’t seem like we’re moving, doesn’t mean we should risk getting out.” “Our ancestors wouldn’t have sacrificed so much to stay in the boat if it wasn’t really on the water. And I wouldn’t feel such a dark, frightened feeling every time my doubts say we’ve been fooled.” “Absolutely. There’s no other explanation for it.” Source

Countless, Evangelicals have asked me, “Bruce, what if Christianity is true?” Usually, this question is couched in the use of Pascal’s Wager. For those of you unfamiliar with Pascal’s Wager, the RationalWiki explains it this way:

“”Pascal’s wager: Believing in and searching for kryptonite — on the off chance that Superman exists and wants to kill you.

Pascal’s wager is an argument that asserts that one should believe in God, even if God’s existence cannot be proved or disproved through reason.

Blaise Pascal’s original wager was as a fairly short paragraph in Pensées amongst several other notes that could be considered “wagers”. Its argument is rooted in what has subsequently become known as game theory. The wager argues that the best course of action is to believe in God regardless of any lack of evidence, because that option gives the biggest potential gains. Pascal’s original text is long-winded and written in somewhat convoluted philosophy-speak, but it can be distilled more simply:

  • If you believe in God and God does exist, you will be rewarded with eternal life in heaven: thus an infinite gain.
  • If you do not believe in God and God does exist, you will be condemned to remain in hell forever: thus an infinite loss.
  • If you believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded: thus an insignificant loss.
  • If you do not believe in God and God does not exist, you will not be rewarded, but you have lived your own life: thus an insignificant gain.

….

Pascal’s wager makes a number of assumptions about reality, and a number of theological assumptions about the god it argues for. If any of these can be shown to either be false or undesirable, then the power of the Wager for determining one’s actions and beliefs is severely weakened — indeed, the argument of the Wager can be reversed in some cases and it can argue for non-belief. These mostly stem from the theological implications of applying the Wager to belief in God, rather than the game theory attributes and decision-making process presented.

People asking me this question genuinely fear what will happen to me if Christianity is true. Well, actually, their version of Christianity, anyway. I have yet to have a progressive or liberal Christian try Pascal’s Wager on me. Either out of not wanting to be impolite or believing in some form of universal salvation, liberals and progressives don’t try to evangelize me. All praise be to Loki for such grace and mercy. Evangelicals, on the other hand, adhere to an exclusionary, separatist version of Christianity. For them, it is all about right beliefs, who is in and who is out. Matters of salvation and eternal destiny are elevated to matters of life and death. If God is who Evangelicals say he is, and judgment and eternal torture await all those who refuse to bow a knee and worship Jesus, then I can, on a theological and personal basis, understand why they might be worried about me. There are those Evangelicals who seem to relish and glory in my soon death and torture in Hell, but most Jesus-lovers are decent human beings who don’t want to people to suffer (though their overwhelming support for the vile, anti-human policies of Donald Trump is cause for me to reconsider my view of Evangelicals as a whole). Thus, the question, WHAT IF CHRISTIANITY IS TRUE?

Such questions are laden with presuppositions. The Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God. The God revealed in the Bible is the one true God. This true God reveals himself to everyone through creation and conscience, rendering every human who has ever walked on the face of the earth without excuse. That’s why Evangelicals say there’s no such thing as an atheist, or that atheists deliberately ignore the evidence for God out of some sort of secret desire to sin and live licentiously. No matter how many times atheists suggest otherwise, Evangelicals know better. Their presuppositions tell them so . . . end of discussion. This is why it almost always a waste of time to argue with Evangelicals who are psychologically tethered to these beliefs. Until they are willing to at least consider they could be wrong, there’s no way to reach them intellectually.

I get it. Fear of being wrong is a powerful motivator. So is fear of Hell and eternal damnation. Remove fear as a motivator, and I suspect many Evangelicals would be sleeping in on Sundays with the unwashed, uncircumcised Philistines of the world. But, as long you worried about what might happen if you believe the wrong things, go to the wrong church, or any of the other “important” matters they clench their sphincter muscles over, you are likely to, at least, do the things that make one a Jesus-loving, Bible-believing, Evangelical Christian. It was only when I no longer believed that the Bible was what Evangelicals claim it is that I was able to break free of a lifetime of Fundamentalist belief and practice. It was the Bible that had a magical, powerful hold on me. Once, however, that hold on me was broken, the jig was up. Once the Bible lost its authority over me, I was free to think and believe whatever I wanted. And, here I am today, an outspoken ex-Evangelical turned atheist; a former card-carrying right-wing extremist who is now a progressive and a liberal. Truly reason and intellectual inquiry have transformed me into a new person. As the good book says, “If any man be in reason, old things are passed away and all things become new.” Okay, the original text says, “if any man be in CHRIST,” not in “reason.” However, I did have a born-again experience of sorts when I deconverted. The difference, of course, is that I have not arrived. I have not bought fire insurance and punched my ticket for glory. I am just a man wandering on the path of reason, knowledge, and understanding. Released from fear of God, judgment, and eternal fire and brimstone, I am free to wander at will across this landscape we call life. This is called FREEDOM.

Bruce, you never did answer the question. “What if Christianity is true?” Fine, here’s my answer. I have weighed Christianity in the balances and found it wanting. I have concluded that the central claims of Christianity are not true. Jesus? A naturally-born Jewish rabbi who got himself killed 2,000 years ago because he ran afoul of Roman (and Jewish) law. Once dead, Jesus stayed that way. No resurrection for Jesus, nor for the rest of us either. But what about all Jesus’ miracles? Works of fiction. That’s what reason and common sense tell me. I refuse to let a largely irrelevant religious text cloud my view of life.

“But, Bruce, what if Christianity is true?”

sigh

About Bruce Gerencser

Bruce Gerencser, 62, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 41 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.

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The Existence of God: Daring to Look Behind the Curtain

god-curtain

Recently, Andrew Hackman said, “Once you see behind the god curtain, there is no point in offering me a “better” god.” Andrew’s words got me thinking about the 1939 movie The Wizard of Oz; of how Dorothy and her compatriots traveled to the Emerald City to see the great Wizard of Oz. Rumor had it that the Wizard of Oz had great powers, and who better to give the Scarecrow a brain, the Tin Woodman a heart, the Cowardly Lion courage, and magically return Dorothy to Kansas? The Wizard agreed to grant their wishes if they brought him the broomstick belonging to the Wicked Witch of the West.

Upon achieving the quest, Dorothy and her friends return to the Emerald City, thinking that the Wizard will happily and quickly grant their wishes. Instead, he stalls, hoping they will give up and go away. As they persisted, Toto, the dog, pulled back a curtain to reveal that the great Wizard of Oz was actually a “middle-aged man operating machinery and speaking into a microphone.”

So it for those of us who have pulled back the God curtain, only to find out that “God” was a fabrication of the human mind; that the God we loved, worshiped, and adored was nothing more than a feeble, frail man using magical words and religious texts to convince us of his existence. The God behind the curtain used all sorts of tricks to get us to accept that he was real; that he was the supreme ruler of the universe; that he was the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the one true God. But once we saw the human behind the curtain, it was impossible for us to unsee. We had three choices: pretend that we didn’t see what was behind the curtain, ignore what we had seen, or admit that the deity we had devoted our lives to was no God at all. For those of us who are atheists and agnostics, we chose number three — there is no God.

wizard of oz

It’s been a decade now since I pulled back the God curtain and found that Christian God (and all other extant Gods) was a fake, a fraud, a human invention. Since that time, countless Evangelicals, Catholics, and Muslims have attempted to evangelize me, saying that I had been worshiping a false God, and that if I would just believe in and follow their peculiar version of God, all my wishes would be granted.

Their remonstrations have fallen on deaf ears. Why? Let me quote my buddy Andrew again, “Once you see behind the god curtain, there is no point in offering me a “better” god.” You see, once you know the truth, there’s no going back. Once you realize the psychological, sociological, and geographical nature of belief in God, the idea that God is “real” falls flat on its face. Christian zealots continue to try to convince me that their flavor of Christianity is “truth,” but I know better. You see, I have pulled back the curtain, and I know that God looks and acts a lot like Bruce Gerencser and seven billion other human beings.

About Bruce Gerencser

Bruce Gerencser, 62, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 41 years. He and his wife have six grown children and twelve grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist. For more information about Bruce, please read the About page.

Are you on Social Media? Follow Bruce on Facebook and Twitter.

Thank you for reading this post. Please share your thoughts in the comment section. If you are a first-time commenter, please read the commenting policy before wowing readers with your words. All first-time comments are moderated. If you would like to contact Bruce directly, please use the contact form to do so.

Donations are always appreciated. Donations on a monthly basis can be made through Patreon. One-time donations can be made through PayPal.

Songs of Sacrilege: Shallow Be Thy Name by Red Hot Chili Peppers

red hot chili peppers

This is the two hundredth and seventh installment in the Songs of Sacrilege series. This is a series that I would like readers to help me with. If you know of a song that is irreverent towards religion, makes fun of religion, pokes fun at sincerely held religious beliefs, or challenges the firmly held religious beliefs of others, please send me an email.

Today’s Song of Sacrilege is Shallow Be Thy Name by Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Video Link

Lyrics

[Verse 1]
I was not created in the likeness of a fraud
Your hell is something scary, I prefer a loving God
We are not the center of this funny universe
And what is worse, I do not serve in fear of such a curse

[Verse 2]
Shallow be thy game, 2000 years, look in the mirror
You play the game of shame and tell your people live in fear
A rival to the way you see, the Bible let him be
I’m a threat to your survival and your control company

[Chorus]
You’ll never burn me [x2]
I will be your heretic
You can’t contain me
I am the power free
Truth belongs to everybody

[Verse 3]
To anyone who’s listening, you’re not born into sin
The guilt they try and give you, puke it in the nearest bin
Missionary madness sweep up culture with a broom
Trashing ancient ways is part for the course it’s fucking rude

[Verse 4]
To think that you’re above, the laws of nature is a joke
Purple sashes, feeding masses, smoke on which to choke
I might be a monkey when it comes to being holy
Fundamental hatred get down on your knees and…

[Chorus]
You’ll never burn me [x2]
I will be your heretic
You can’t contain me
I am the power free
Truth belongs to everybody

[Verse 1]
I was not created in the likeness of a fraud
Your hell is something scary, I prefer a loving God
We are not the center of this funny universe
And what is worse, I do not serve in fear of such a…

[Chorus]
You’ll never burn me [x2]
I will be your heretic
You can’t contain me
I am the power free
Truth belongs to everybody

 

Bruce Gerencser