Repost from 2015. Edited, updated, and corrected.
Bruce, I love and respect your position.
No, you don’t.
And you shouldn’t.
If you are a Christian, I mean a card-carrying member of the Jesus club, you should find my views abhorrent, loathsome, and damnable.
I know you say you are my friend.
I know you have become adept at separating the man from his message.
I appreciate the fact that you make an attempt to love me where I am and how I am.
But I wonder . . .
Do you really love me for being me, or is your love a means to an end?
Perhaps you operate under the delusion that if you just love me as you think Jesus loves me that I will return to the Christian faith and the universe, your universe, will be in balance once again.
You hold on, hoping that the hounds of heaven chase me down and drag me kicking and screaming back to the Kingdom of God.
Sometimes, I think you are like those people whose spouses have died. Night after night, they sit on the couch hoping that it is all a mistake and that their spouse is going to walk through the door.
I am not coming through the door.
It is time for you to embrace reality.
I am an unbeliever, one with lots of knowledge about Christianity, but an unbeliever nonetheless.
I am an apostate.
I am a Christ-denier.
My life is a repudiation of all you believe is true.
I spit in the face of God and trample under the blood of the covenant.
Outside of these things I am still a pretty good guy.
You don’t really love and respect my position.
How can you?
I stand in opposition to virtually everything you believe.
Besides, I voted for Obama, and I plan to vote for Biden in November.
You believe the Bible is God’s truth.
I don’t.
You believe that human beings are vile, depraved sinners needing salvation.
I don’t.
You believe Jesus is the way, truth, and life.
I don’t.
You think attending church on Sunday is the most important thing a person can do.
I don’t.
What does the Bible say about someone like me?
Be honest.
I am a dog returned to his vomit (2 Peter 2:22).
I am a pig returned to the pig pen (2 Peter 2:22).
I have given heed to seducing spirits and the doctrines of devils (1 Timothy 4:1).
I am a scoffer walking in my own lusts (2 Peter 3:2-7).
I am willingly ignorant (2 Peter 3:2-7).
I am a false prophet, a false teacher out to deceive all who come in contact with me (Matthew 24:11-12).
Let me remind you of what the Bible says about someone like me:
But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.
And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.
For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;
And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:
(For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)
The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:
But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.
Whereas angels, which are greater in power and might, bring not railing accusation against them before the Lord.
But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;
And shall receive the reward of unrighteousness, as they that count it pleasure to riot in the day time. Spots they are and blemishes, sporting themselves with their own deceivings while they feast with you;
Having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin; beguiling unstable souls: an heart they have exercised with covetous practices; cursed children:
Which have forsaken the right way, and are gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Bosor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness;
But was rebuked for his iniquity: the dumb ass speaking with man’s voice forbad the madness of the prophet.
These are wells without water, clouds that are carried with a tempest; to whom the mist of darkness is reserved for ever.
For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.
For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein, and overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.
But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. (2 Peter 2)
The Bible is clear. God has spoken. It would have been better for me not to have ever known Jesus, never to have been saved.
I understand why some Evangelicals become so violent, so aggressive with me. I am a fly in their ointment, a stench that cannot be removed. Their answer is to declare that I never was a Christian, that I never was saved, that I never believed the truth, that I am a publican and a heathen (Matthew 18).
But YOU know better.
You know what I believed.
You know how I lived.
You know . . .
I don’t ask you to love and respect my position.
Stand for what you believe, what you think is the truth.
All I ask of you is that you truly have an answer for the hope that lies within you (1 Peter 3:15).
Don’t tell me what your denomination, pastor, or church believes.
Don’t tell me to read the latest, greatest book by a Christian apologist.
What do YOU really believe?
If you know what you believe, shout it out from the mountaintops.
But, if you are not so sure . . .
If you have questions . . .
If you have doubts . . .
Consider me an alternative viewpoint.
I am not a guru.
I am not a prophet.
I am just one man on a journey from eternity to here.
This blog is the written expression of my journey.
It is my “bible.”
I am nothing more than one man crying in the wilderness of his own life, seeking to know and understand not only his own life, but the lives of those he inhabits the earth with.
Most of all, I am here to help.
Bruce Gerencser, 63, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 42 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen awesome 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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