This was much the same message presented on Sunday by Pope Leo when he cited actual words of scripture to forcefully state that God rejects the prayers of those who wage war, saying: "Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood” (Is 1:15)."
While the Pope did not mention any leaders by name, many have suggested it was a direct rebuttal to Hegseth offering a prayer that week for God to deliver great violence on America's enemies who deserve it, demonstrating exactly the sort of fake Christianity that is based solely on accepting Christ and then wait for Him to do the work. And if there is a fake Christian that embodies the evils of the fake Christianity more than Erickson (himself a fine choice), it is most certainly Pete Hegseth.
Mike I have read a lot of what you have written but this piece is particularly good. I love the observation of Descartes!
It seems to me that what is practiced as “Christianity” in white evangelical churches is something categorically different from the Christ in the gospels. It is a blend of Calvin and white racism, that celebrates wealth as “god given” and maintains followers are separate (and above) non-followers in the eyes of god.
The debate about the meaning of the life of Jesus goes back to antiquity and the debate between Augustine and Pelagius. Augustine invented the concept of original sin - that all of humanity inherits the sin of Adam and that human life in the flesh is utterly corrupt, needing the redeeming sacrifice of a Savior and the grace of God. Humanity cannot save itself through good works. Pelagius, reading the same Scriptures, did not accept this. He argued that everyone is born innocent and therefore, in principle, capable of leading a good and sinless life, however rare that might be, by following the teachings and example of Jesus. Pelagius was deemed the great heretic of the early Church. But your dive into the Gospels suggests that Pelagius may be right. Jesus was not a magical being but a demanding teacher, asking much of his followers. The version of Christianity ascendant today - salvation through believing the right things and the anticipation if grace, is, as Erickson says, rather simple and, in its way easy. But by de-emphasizing good works, it does create a problem that Pelagius foresaw. If all of humanity is
mired in sin and our salvation is through grace alone, why try to live a good life?
Amen. I agree that the derailment of Christianity is hard to watch as it is being molded into the opposite of what it says. Christianity, at its base - Sermon on the Mount - is very hard. It is not a "Get Out of Jail Free" kind of religion.
Who am I to know? But it seems to me that the Jews taught principles that made sense as instructions about how to live successfully in community. Do not do what causes friction.
To me it seems that Jesus taught how to live with oneself in the most joyous way possible. We are animals. We have instincts that lead us to be territorial and competitive. But we also have calculating and judgmental minds that lead us to be jealous, defensive and an assortment of nasty little interior ego compunctions that needlessly fuck up our ability to enjoy whatever we are lucky enough to have. There are those with much who are continually irritated and unhappy. And some who are devastatingly disabled and seem not to feel sorry for themselves (personally I can’t fathom how they manage to do this. I consider them blessed with a grace that I could never hope to know).
We need our egos to have the incentive to survive; but our egos also create the stumbling blocks we trip over because we are simply irretrievably human, and not angels.
My father was the son of Irish immigrants who was gifted with drive and smarts. He managed to go from no advantages to living in Palm Beach and belonging to the clubs trump couldn’t get into. When he was new in town and dancing at the Everglades Club with an Anglophile, she informed him, with distress, that her eldest daughter had just married a man who was not only Catholic, but Irish! My father found it hilarious (and of course said nothing). And it is a really funny scene; something straight out of an Archie Bunker skit. It didn’t occur to him to be offended. And that, for me, is what turning the other cheek is about. Not something physical, but rather the ability to let something that could offend you just pass on by. (That woman’s daughter became my best friend.). Freedom from anger and grudges is a great blessing. The ability to live without unpleasant thoughts and feelings dwelling rent free in your head is fantastic! I don’t believe that Jesus’s teachings were about how to earn a place in heaven. I think it was about how to live on earth without letting your ego rule your feelings. Not an easy task. Personally I found that forgiveness is not something I can control like a light switch. For me, I’ve found that sincere desire to ditch negative emotions and to pray for that outcome is surprisingly effective. I’ve also found that the less judgmental I am of others the more accepting I am of my own shortcomings. Actually I don’t even believe you have to be Christian to find that the teachings of Jesus are a recipe for living a happier life in the here and now.
Thomas Jefferson thought that the philosophy of Jesus was important, but his enlightened self couldn’t get on board with all the miracles and other violations of physical laws reported in the Bible. So he took a razor blade and removed all the bits of the Bible that directly quoted Jesus. And binned the rest. He compiled those pages and it became The Jefferson Bible. A very compelling read if you want to truly understand what Jesus stood for. If you read it you’ll end up knowing more about what Christianity should be than most self professed Christians do.
As a scholar of Mr. Jefferson, I am of course familiar with the efforts of our Founder in this direction. I might suggest that I have taken my own eye to the Gospels and written my thoughts, not downstream but alongside that of our founding thinker.
The well-meaning, god-fearing people holding "John 3:16" signs in the end zone of football games always struck me as the most American Americans. Kick a field goal, score a touchdown, and believe that Jesus was God, and you too shall be saved.
Salvation is simple, as long as you don't read the rest of the Bible.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
The text of John 3:16 supports a simplistic view of salvation only if you don’t think to hard about what it actually means to “believe in him.” Does one believe in Jesus bc he claims to believe he is the son of God while refusing to practice any of Jesus’ teachings in the gospel? I’d suggest the answer to that question is no and some of text of Jesus’ teachings directly support it. Also there is a bit of common sense at play here. If you earnestly believe that Jesus is the true and only son of God and THE path to your eternal salvation in the kingdom of heaven, you think you’d care very much about what he says about how he wants you to conduct yourself and treat others. If that doesn’t interest you much or enough to make any personal changes or sacrifices, I think it’s fair to question the sincerity of your actual belief in Him.
Inevitable quibble (cause, well, I'm prone to it): Galen Strawson strongly disagrees with your reading of Descartes. Strawson's reading is that by 'cognito' Descartes meant pretty much what you say he should have meant -- being consciously aware in the broadest sense, not 'thinking' as calculation. With Strawson not merely a prominent Oxford-trained philosopher, reading docs in their original languages, but the son of a prominent Oxford philosopher, I kinda bet he's reading Descartes accurately.
I want to be clear — I am not indicting Descartes as a man. I think him wrong, not wicked. But we do not live inside his intentions. We live inside his sentences. And his sentences produced a tradition that has spent four centuries trying to recover the observer it accidentally expelled. If Strawson is right that Descartes meant something closer to conscious awareness than computation, then the most generous reading available is that he expressed himself so badly he founded a tradition that contradicts his own intentions. That is not a defense of Descartes. It is an additional charge against his precision.
Well, we can always try to play games of charity with all arguments. Including my own. But one must take accountability for how they are interpreted. That Decartes might have felt different than what he meant is his failing. I shall not argue on his behalf. He is dead.
Mike, Strawson's point is not one of charity. It's that Descartes, in context, did not mean by 'cognito' what the English word 'think' means to you. What he meant has been lost in translation. As Google's AI sums it up just now:
"To him, if you are conscious of it happening in your head, it counts as 'thinking.' He wasn't just saying 'I calculate, therefore I am,' but rather 'I am a conscious being, therefore I am.'"
So it's not just Strawson reading Descartes that way. None of the references the AI cites are Strawson. Word meaning drifts over centuries. It's not a responsibility of the writer to anticipate the drift and write for the future rather than use words with the meanings they have in his own time.
Translations of ancient texts are tricky. I shared a version of 'The Lords Prayer' from the original Aramaic with students. Much different than the one I grew up with. Much kinder. 😊 Best to read a dozen translations if you can, the truth is somewhere in the middle ☮️
No fun for us, either. 😊By the middle I did not mean center, that would be boring More likely it is hiding in the forest of description, while we search for a glimpse of recognition.
And Sam Harris might well say people have hijacked genuine Judaism, too. In fact, right now bogus Jews and bogus Christians have hijacked two countries and aimed their militaries at a bogus end times scenario to fulfill their fever dreams. Thank you for separating what Jesus said from what these insane zealots have made of it.
I’m a longtime Atheist who left a few years ago for Catholicism. I kept reading this article and then having to double-check that I was reading something Mike wrote and not an article written by one of the Catholic Substackers I follow. Your critique of Erickson aligns very neatly with our theology.
This was much the same message presented on Sunday by Pope Leo when he cited actual words of scripture to forcefully state that God rejects the prayers of those who wage war, saying: "Jesus, King of Peace, who rejects war, whom no one can use to justify war. He does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war, but rejects them, saying: “Even though you make many prayers, I will not listen: your hands are full of blood” (Is 1:15)."
While the Pope did not mention any leaders by name, many have suggested it was a direct rebuttal to Hegseth offering a prayer that week for God to deliver great violence on America's enemies who deserve it, demonstrating exactly the sort of fake Christianity that is based solely on accepting Christ and then wait for Him to do the work. And if there is a fake Christian that embodies the evils of the fake Christianity more than Erickson (himself a fine choice), it is most certainly Pete Hegseth.
Mike I have read a lot of what you have written but this piece is particularly good. I love the observation of Descartes!
It seems to me that what is practiced as “Christianity” in white evangelical churches is something categorically different from the Christ in the gospels. It is a blend of Calvin and white racism, that celebrates wealth as “god given” and maintains followers are separate (and above) non-followers in the eyes of god.
Yes, me too!
"What Descartes needed was not I think but I notice that I am thinking"
The debate about the meaning of the life of Jesus goes back to antiquity and the debate between Augustine and Pelagius. Augustine invented the concept of original sin - that all of humanity inherits the sin of Adam and that human life in the flesh is utterly corrupt, needing the redeeming sacrifice of a Savior and the grace of God. Humanity cannot save itself through good works. Pelagius, reading the same Scriptures, did not accept this. He argued that everyone is born innocent and therefore, in principle, capable of leading a good and sinless life, however rare that might be, by following the teachings and example of Jesus. Pelagius was deemed the great heretic of the early Church. But your dive into the Gospels suggests that Pelagius may be right. Jesus was not a magical being but a demanding teacher, asking much of his followers. The version of Christianity ascendant today - salvation through believing the right things and the anticipation if grace, is, as Erickson says, rather simple and, in its way easy. But by de-emphasizing good works, it does create a problem that Pelagius foresaw. If all of humanity is
mired in sin and our salvation is through grace alone, why try to live a good life?
Calvinism calls it cheap grace. You are discouraged from doing that as well.
Amen. I agree that the derailment of Christianity is hard to watch as it is being molded into the opposite of what it says. Christianity, at its base - Sermon on the Mount - is very hard. It is not a "Get Out of Jail Free" kind of religion.
Yes. I always bring up Matthew, specifically the Sermon on the Mount to the pro-forma anti-christ christians. They have completely lost the plot.
Who am I to know? But it seems to me that the Jews taught principles that made sense as instructions about how to live successfully in community. Do not do what causes friction.
To me it seems that Jesus taught how to live with oneself in the most joyous way possible. We are animals. We have instincts that lead us to be territorial and competitive. But we also have calculating and judgmental minds that lead us to be jealous, defensive and an assortment of nasty little interior ego compunctions that needlessly fuck up our ability to enjoy whatever we are lucky enough to have. There are those with much who are continually irritated and unhappy. And some who are devastatingly disabled and seem not to feel sorry for themselves (personally I can’t fathom how they manage to do this. I consider them blessed with a grace that I could never hope to know).
We need our egos to have the incentive to survive; but our egos also create the stumbling blocks we trip over because we are simply irretrievably human, and not angels.
My father was the son of Irish immigrants who was gifted with drive and smarts. He managed to go from no advantages to living in Palm Beach and belonging to the clubs trump couldn’t get into. When he was new in town and dancing at the Everglades Club with an Anglophile, she informed him, with distress, that her eldest daughter had just married a man who was not only Catholic, but Irish! My father found it hilarious (and of course said nothing). And it is a really funny scene; something straight out of an Archie Bunker skit. It didn’t occur to him to be offended. And that, for me, is what turning the other cheek is about. Not something physical, but rather the ability to let something that could offend you just pass on by. (That woman’s daughter became my best friend.). Freedom from anger and grudges is a great blessing. The ability to live without unpleasant thoughts and feelings dwelling rent free in your head is fantastic! I don’t believe that Jesus’s teachings were about how to earn a place in heaven. I think it was about how to live on earth without letting your ego rule your feelings. Not an easy task. Personally I found that forgiveness is not something I can control like a light switch. For me, I’ve found that sincere desire to ditch negative emotions and to pray for that outcome is surprisingly effective. I’ve also found that the less judgmental I am of others the more accepting I am of my own shortcomings. Actually I don’t even believe you have to be Christian to find that the teachings of Jesus are a recipe for living a happier life in the here and now.
So refreshing for you to state it for so many. Too bad so few "get it".
Thomas Jefferson thought that the philosophy of Jesus was important, but his enlightened self couldn’t get on board with all the miracles and other violations of physical laws reported in the Bible. So he took a razor blade and removed all the bits of the Bible that directly quoted Jesus. And binned the rest. He compiled those pages and it became The Jefferson Bible. A very compelling read if you want to truly understand what Jesus stood for. If you read it you’ll end up knowing more about what Christianity should be than most self professed Christians do.
As a scholar of Mr. Jefferson, I am of course familiar with the efforts of our Founder in this direction. I might suggest that I have taken my own eye to the Gospels and written my thoughts, not downstream but alongside that of our founding thinker.
Founding Thinker is a terrific turn of phrase.
And it’s online for a free read.
https://archive.org/details/jeffersonbibleli0000unse
Thanks very much for the link !
I have posted this before: this is the path that evangelical Protestantism in the United States has been on for decades at a minimum.
https://bsky.app/profile/rahaeli.bsky.social/post/3loqsfhswjk2r
The well-meaning, god-fearing people holding "John 3:16" signs in the end zone of football games always struck me as the most American Americans. Kick a field goal, score a touchdown, and believe that Jesus was God, and you too shall be saved.
Salvation is simple, as long as you don't read the rest of the Bible.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."
The text of John 3:16 supports a simplistic view of salvation only if you don’t think to hard about what it actually means to “believe in him.” Does one believe in Jesus bc he claims to believe he is the son of God while refusing to practice any of Jesus’ teachings in the gospel? I’d suggest the answer to that question is no and some of text of Jesus’ teachings directly support it. Also there is a bit of common sense at play here. If you earnestly believe that Jesus is the true and only son of God and THE path to your eternal salvation in the kingdom of heaven, you think you’d care very much about what he says about how he wants you to conduct yourself and treat others. If that doesn’t interest you much or enough to make any personal changes or sacrifices, I think it’s fair to question the sincerity of your actual belief in Him.
Nice analysis.
Inevitable quibble (cause, well, I'm prone to it): Galen Strawson strongly disagrees with your reading of Descartes. Strawson's reading is that by 'cognito' Descartes meant pretty much what you say he should have meant -- being consciously aware in the broadest sense, not 'thinking' as calculation. With Strawson not merely a prominent Oxford-trained philosopher, reading docs in their original languages, but the son of a prominent Oxford philosopher, I kinda bet he's reading Descartes accurately.
I want to be clear — I am not indicting Descartes as a man. I think him wrong, not wicked. But we do not live inside his intentions. We live inside his sentences. And his sentences produced a tradition that has spent four centuries trying to recover the observer it accidentally expelled. If Strawson is right that Descartes meant something closer to conscious awareness than computation, then the most generous reading available is that he expressed himself so badly he founded a tradition that contradicts his own intentions. That is not a defense of Descartes. It is an additional charge against his precision.
Well, we can always try to play games of charity with all arguments. Including my own. But one must take accountability for how they are interpreted. That Decartes might have felt different than what he meant is his failing. I shall not argue on his behalf. He is dead.
Mike, Strawson's point is not one of charity. It's that Descartes, in context, did not mean by 'cognito' what the English word 'think' means to you. What he meant has been lost in translation. As Google's AI sums it up just now:
"To him, if you are conscious of it happening in your head, it counts as 'thinking.' He wasn't just saying 'I calculate, therefore I am,' but rather 'I am a conscious being, therefore I am.'"
So it's not just Strawson reading Descartes that way. None of the references the AI cites are Strawson. Word meaning drifts over centuries. It's not a responsibility of the writer to anticipate the drift and write for the future rather than use words with the meanings they have in his own time.
I suppose you and I have a different perspective on what it is that should be emphasized here in the discourse.
Translations of ancient texts are tricky. I shared a version of 'The Lords Prayer' from the original Aramaic with students. Much different than the one I grew up with. Much kinder. 😊 Best to read a dozen translations if you can, the truth is somewhere in the middle ☮️
With You and My Bit:
…”the truth is somewhere ‘In the Middle’” would be easy to Get At if it were Placed There.
To Measure. Then Pick your Point. Is a whole other Location.
Likely the Truth doesn’t want Caught Up with. Then we’d Stop Chasing it. What Fun is that for The Truth? 🕊️
No fun for us, either. 😊By the middle I did not mean center, that would be boring More likely it is hiding in the forest of description, while we search for a glimpse of recognition.
And Sam Harris might well say people have hijacked genuine Judaism, too. In fact, right now bogus Jews and bogus Christians have hijacked two countries and aimed their militaries at a bogus end times scenario to fulfill their fever dreams. Thank you for separating what Jesus said from what these insane zealots have made of it.
So we see a new, simplified Gospel of the rich, tailored for the masses. Unfortunately the rich are always with us.
I’m a longtime Atheist who left a few years ago for Catholicism. I kept reading this article and then having to double-check that I was reading something Mike wrote and not an article written by one of the Catholic Substackers I follow. Your critique of Erickson aligns very neatly with our theology.
Beautiful commentary. Dietrich Bonhoeffer would agree with you.
An argument can be mounted that the Sermon on the Mount (excuse the pun!!) was not Western but Middle Eastern in its roots.