I know this piece is a little bit tongue and cheek, but rich people *did* behave different in the ancient world than they do today. Much more likely to be expropriators! What’s more, poor people and beggars were everywhere. Most/all societies before the last couple hundred years didn’t grow enough food, so like 20% of the population could literally not do anything but beg. I’m open to the idea that Christian populism is overrated, but not sure if this is it.
Yeah, I'll grant that there was probably a higher degree of immoral behavior among the rich, and also probably a much lower probability of succeeding via a "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" mentality.
I guess the Sermon on the Mount might have been a vaguely accurate appraisal of the moral circumstances of the ancient world (although I still think condemning *all* the rich and praising *all* the poor is obviously incorrect). But it sure doesn't hold up now! And people are still very much claiming that Jesus was onto some extremely fundamental moral truths, and that all his teachings should be practiced today. Which, no!
Jesus was alive in the time and place he was alive. He didn't map out the exact balance of vibes people should have in every context and situation for the rest of existence.
You can find other examples in the Bible where he yells at people for not achieving the highest ROI possible with their capital (what a Jew!).
He also seemed to take a relatively chill view of the Romans. Basically, "some conquer is going to be in charge and they aren't the worst, most of your problems are your own and not caused by them."
The rest of the Gospels have some mixed messages too. While it lends towards the communistic amongst people in the church, it also says that people who refuse to work should starve to death and rather than get charity.
"Not worrying about tomorrow" isn't a command to fail the marshmallow test. In a poor, malthusian, uncertain, and violent world one can easily be overwhelmed by planning for tomorrow. While present consumption needs are finite, one can ALAWYS have more wealth saved for a rainy day. If that impulse is so strong it causes people to ignore the commandments then its gone to far. Which if the Jewish religious figures of the day it appears to have.
A similar commandment is true of his relationship with tax collectors and soldiers. He doesn't tell them to give up their jobs. He tells them to stop cheating people. Take only what is owed. Even if this means you don't have extra for a rainy day.
Of course people use Christianity for whatever they like but there is a long Christian tradition of not being communist.
Again, I don’t disagree. Not to shamelessly self-promote (lol not sorry), but I’ve actually written about this before. I think people would be surprised at the degree of (perhaps intentional!) contradiction woven within the text of the Bible https://joerjames3.substack.com/p/a-secular-reading-the-parable-of For example, I think Acts and Luke are generally considered to be written by the same author (I think?) and they given contradictory teachings about being rich! https://joerjames3.substack.com/p/the-bible-isnt-clear?r=110d4 Long story short (as a non-believer) I think plain text readings of the bible are misleading, as the Bible (specifically Jesus’s teachings) are very much wisdom literature, raising questions more than providing answers
I have heard some interpretations of the “don’t worry about tomorrow, let it worry about itself” advice as being basically aligned with the Zen Buddhist idea of “be here now”…. And the practice of passage meditation is also aligned with the Lord’s Prayer advice.
The Sadduccees’ greed has obvious parallels with today’s super-rich / elites doing everything they can to extract as much wealth from everyone else as they can. Yes, many rich people are much more capable and have greater capacity for delayed gratification. That capacity goes up very non-linearly with the amount of wealth, since they can begin to employ very smart others to generate even more / better forethought, and delay greater gratification longer without suffering. Over these longer stretches of time, they can syphon more money out of the economy.
Peter Turchin calls it the “wealth pump”. When the wealth pump gets particularly strong / egregious, the masses get super miserable. At that point, the masses become too susceptible to manipulation by the power-/money-hungry counter-elites, who orchestrate a take-over / revolution. The regular folk are still mostly fucked.
… and the priests of the Church of Communism had a similar message: “whoever was nothing will become everything” is a verse from the national hymn of the USSR. The majority remained effed after the revolution, and many became worse off. There was also an overt, palpable sense in the country that the people ought to work selflessly toward global “communism”, and that one shouldn’t worry too much about one’s own material well being, because the Party (and the Heavenly Father Joseph Stalin) would take care of everything.
You're right that what you call the "counter-elite revolution" usually doesn't leave regular people better off. But note that, in this account of labor and wealth, both the "regular" and "counter" elites have done something immoral - the regular elites have done something morally wrong in extracting money and labor from the masses through the "wealth pump", and the counter-elites have done something morally wrong in manipulating them for their own gain.
So we have reason to think that *everyone* who might be described as an economic "elite" is not going to Heaven. This helps shed some light, and a fairly reasonable interpretation, on the Biblical verse, which Ari criticizes, that rich people (which is a vague term, but I assume refers to economic elites in this sense) cannot go to Heaven.
I don't know how much this interpretation bears on the point I'm making. I mean, for one, it's still stuck in woke axiology—elites and counterelites might *sometimes* do bad and wealth-pump-y things, but certainly not every single one! It doesn't make sense to completely malign them as a group and reward the poor instead.
However, that kind of rhetoric *does* make sense if we think Jesus himself was a counter-elite trying to swell up popular support against the elites. The only good evidence against that reading is that Jesus himself never really got corrupted and turned on the people. But what's another good explanation for that? He got killed before he could!
An alternate read: maybe he was on the side of the regular elites? Not the *Sadduccees* in particular, but I imagine that rich people as a whole might have benefitted from his presence. This might be why Pontius Pilate, who represented the interests of wealthy and powerful Romans, tried pretty hard to get Jesus off; he says he finds no reason to charge Jesus, refuses to legitimize his execution, presents the violent criminal Barabbas as the only alternative for amnesty (instead of the petty thieves that are crucified alongside Jesus), and is otherwise pretty damn reluctant to actually go through with it even with a mob baying for his blood.
Why might this be the case?
1) He doesn't preach outright large scale revolution against the elites, despite verbally condemning them; instead, he says to "give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar" and "love your enemies".
2) He promises the poor an eternal paradise after death if they accept their lot and stay humble and poor.
So, Jesus ended up (intentionally or unintentionally) giving regular elites as a whole a lot of advantages here. He sates the poor people's desire for justice, so they don't rise up (cleverly taking the role of an ineffectual counter elite to prevent an actual one agitating a revolution). In the process, he bids them to ignore the misery and exploitation they live in(!) and rest content in the promise they'll live happy ever after eventually. That seems to be a recipe for making obedient workers to me. Maybe Jesus is, against all outward appearances, an agent (even if an unwitting one) of the regular elites.
There is also a correlation between popularity/power of Christianity in a country and wealth inequality within it. There is widespread economic inequality in places like North and South America and Africa, where Christianity is very popular (Russia and China are atheist countries with lots of income inequality, but my prediction isn't that all atheist countries are good for poor people, only that Christian countries are bad for them). That could be an indication that orthodox Christian ideology isn't very good at actually helping the poor.
Good point. The Church got quite rich, too, while its faithful didn’t necessarily.
Russia: to this day quite prone to paganism. A little less so in the cities, but there it worships mammon above all else.
Side note: Pelevin has a book titled “Empire V” about a secret society of vampires that feed off of the human hedonic treadmill. There’s also a prominent theme there of “glamour” and “discourse” being two sides of the same coin. I won’t spoil the plot by saying more. Highly recommend it.
Great “Jesus” post! Many people fail to pull off a really good one. I had one for Easter last year that was based on Aslan’s Zealot, but it was mostly about political economy and not that funny
I'm surprised you made no mention of loving your enemies and turning the other cheek. Those are some pretty famous teachings from the Sermon on the Mount, and I tend to think they're complete horseshit when applied. Imagine telling a Ukrainian citizen to turn the other cheek to Russian soldiers and love them, and imagine telling liberals to do the same to Trump! They just seem to straightforwardly not hold up to scrutiny.
Interestingly, I’ve always found those a lot more permissible in the sense that they compel attitude more than action.
“Love your enemy” seems like a good strategy to avoid most wars, to sue for peace, and also to fight wars precisely and effectively—if you love your enemy, you know them too. I think pacifism in general makes sense, and a charitable, forgiving attitude (“turn the other cheek”) is a good idea. There are certainly coordination problems here—if the enemy doesn’t love you back, you’re gonna hurt for it—but in the sense that Jesus was teaching all mankind, I think it holds up.
> I'm surprised you made no mention of loving your enemies and turning the other cheek. Those are some pretty famous teachings from the Sermon on the Mount, and I tend to think they're complete horseshit when applied.
Maybe it’s hit or miss as a strategy. It definitely helped Christianity overwhelm the Roman Empire.
Maybe I’m misinterpreting, but I feel this post fundamentally misunderstands Jesus’ teachings. He does not condemn wealth or glorify poverty—he warns against wealth becoming an idol that takes precedence over God. This is clear in 1 Timothy 6:10 (“The love of money is the root of all evil”) and the rich young ruler parable, where a man meets Jesus but cannot give up his money, even for heaven.
The small subset of teachings you’ve highlighted doesn’t single-handedly create a moral world, but rather encourages alignment with God over selfish, worldly desires. Without God at the centre, there is no foundation or compulsion to follow biblical teachings—but if He truly is, I believe it leads to a perfectly moral life.
Hope I haven't interpreted your point wrong.
While on the topic happy to debate points 2-5, as I find the evidence compelling, and would love to hear from Jewish point of view on OT prophecies and why they don't point to Jesus as the Messiah :)
the “eye of the needle” passage actually comes from the rich young man chapter!! it is after the young man walks away - i agree that in that context, it makes sense to read “rich” as shorthand for “unwilling to part with money even for salvation”
and then later we get an interaction with Zacchaeus, a super rich tax collector who everybody hates, and Jesus goes to his house and has dinner with him!
as a teacher Jesus’s first lesson is often “let go of your expectations about who is good or bad” - thus the hanging with prostitutes, and poor people, and sinners. tables are not the only thing he upends
People keep saying that the New Testament God is somehow more moral or nicer than the Old Testament God, but the Old Testament God only committed genocide and killed innocent children, while the New Testament God says that everyone who does not believe in him will be tortured for all eternity, which everyone would agree is much worse than just dying
I know this piece is a little bit tongue and cheek, but rich people *did* behave different in the ancient world than they do today. Much more likely to be expropriators! What’s more, poor people and beggars were everywhere. Most/all societies before the last couple hundred years didn’t grow enough food, so like 20% of the population could literally not do anything but beg. I’m open to the idea that Christian populism is overrated, but not sure if this is it.
Yeah, I'll grant that there was probably a higher degree of immoral behavior among the rich, and also probably a much lower probability of succeeding via a "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" mentality.
I guess the Sermon on the Mount might have been a vaguely accurate appraisal of the moral circumstances of the ancient world (although I still think condemning *all* the rich and praising *all* the poor is obviously incorrect). But it sure doesn't hold up now! And people are still very much claiming that Jesus was onto some extremely fundamental moral truths, and that all his teachings should be practiced today. Which, no!
Jesus was alive in the time and place he was alive. He didn't map out the exact balance of vibes people should have in every context and situation for the rest of existence.
You can find other examples in the Bible where he yells at people for not achieving the highest ROI possible with their capital (what a Jew!).
He also seemed to take a relatively chill view of the Romans. Basically, "some conquer is going to be in charge and they aren't the worst, most of your problems are your own and not caused by them."
The rest of the Gospels have some mixed messages too. While it lends towards the communistic amongst people in the church, it also says that people who refuse to work should starve to death and rather than get charity.
"Not worrying about tomorrow" isn't a command to fail the marshmallow test. In a poor, malthusian, uncertain, and violent world one can easily be overwhelmed by planning for tomorrow. While present consumption needs are finite, one can ALAWYS have more wealth saved for a rainy day. If that impulse is so strong it causes people to ignore the commandments then its gone to far. Which if the Jewish religious figures of the day it appears to have.
A similar commandment is true of his relationship with tax collectors and soldiers. He doesn't tell them to give up their jobs. He tells them to stop cheating people. Take only what is owed. Even if this means you don't have extra for a rainy day.
Of course people use Christianity for whatever they like but there is a long Christian tradition of not being communist.
Jesus Christ dude, how are you even a functional person with all this hate? Are you really a psychopath?
Again, I don’t disagree. Not to shamelessly self-promote (lol not sorry), but I’ve actually written about this before. I think people would be surprised at the degree of (perhaps intentional!) contradiction woven within the text of the Bible https://joerjames3.substack.com/p/a-secular-reading-the-parable-of For example, I think Acts and Luke are generally considered to be written by the same author (I think?) and they given contradictory teachings about being rich! https://joerjames3.substack.com/p/the-bible-isnt-clear?r=110d4 Long story short (as a non-believer) I think plain text readings of the bible are misleading, as the Bible (specifically Jesus’s teachings) are very much wisdom literature, raising questions more than providing answers
That's a real flippable-looking table you got there.
Oh I will nail you to a cross *so fast.* Don’t even.
ushers in the apocalypse and damns you to Hell for eternity
As the kids (used to?) say, this post slaps.
I have heard some interpretations of the “don’t worry about tomorrow, let it worry about itself” advice as being basically aligned with the Zen Buddhist idea of “be here now”…. And the practice of passage meditation is also aligned with the Lord’s Prayer advice.
The Sadduccees’ greed has obvious parallels with today’s super-rich / elites doing everything they can to extract as much wealth from everyone else as they can. Yes, many rich people are much more capable and have greater capacity for delayed gratification. That capacity goes up very non-linearly with the amount of wealth, since they can begin to employ very smart others to generate even more / better forethought, and delay greater gratification longer without suffering. Over these longer stretches of time, they can syphon more money out of the economy.
Peter Turchin calls it the “wealth pump”. When the wealth pump gets particularly strong / egregious, the masses get super miserable. At that point, the masses become too susceptible to manipulation by the power-/money-hungry counter-elites, who orchestrate a take-over / revolution. The regular folk are still mostly fucked.
… and the priests of the Church of Communism had a similar message: “whoever was nothing will become everything” is a verse from the national hymn of the USSR. The majority remained effed after the revolution, and many became worse off. There was also an overt, palpable sense in the country that the people ought to work selflessly toward global “communism”, and that one shouldn’t worry too much about one’s own material well being, because the Party (and the Heavenly Father Joseph Stalin) would take care of everything.
I really should try to put a review of Turchin's book here before too long...
You're right that what you call the "counter-elite revolution" usually doesn't leave regular people better off. But note that, in this account of labor and wealth, both the "regular" and "counter" elites have done something immoral - the regular elites have done something morally wrong in extracting money and labor from the masses through the "wealth pump", and the counter-elites have done something morally wrong in manipulating them for their own gain.
So we have reason to think that *everyone* who might be described as an economic "elite" is not going to Heaven. This helps shed some light, and a fairly reasonable interpretation, on the Biblical verse, which Ari criticizes, that rich people (which is a vague term, but I assume refers to economic elites in this sense) cannot go to Heaven.
I don't know how much this interpretation bears on the point I'm making. I mean, for one, it's still stuck in woke axiology—elites and counterelites might *sometimes* do bad and wealth-pump-y things, but certainly not every single one! It doesn't make sense to completely malign them as a group and reward the poor instead.
However, that kind of rhetoric *does* make sense if we think Jesus himself was a counter-elite trying to swell up popular support against the elites. The only good evidence against that reading is that Jesus himself never really got corrupted and turned on the people. But what's another good explanation for that? He got killed before he could!
An alternate read: maybe he was on the side of the regular elites? Not the *Sadduccees* in particular, but I imagine that rich people as a whole might have benefitted from his presence. This might be why Pontius Pilate, who represented the interests of wealthy and powerful Romans, tried pretty hard to get Jesus off; he says he finds no reason to charge Jesus, refuses to legitimize his execution, presents the violent criminal Barabbas as the only alternative for amnesty (instead of the petty thieves that are crucified alongside Jesus), and is otherwise pretty damn reluctant to actually go through with it even with a mob baying for his blood.
Why might this be the case?
1) He doesn't preach outright large scale revolution against the elites, despite verbally condemning them; instead, he says to "give unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar" and "love your enemies".
2) He promises the poor an eternal paradise after death if they accept their lot and stay humble and poor.
So, Jesus ended up (intentionally or unintentionally) giving regular elites as a whole a lot of advantages here. He sates the poor people's desire for justice, so they don't rise up (cleverly taking the role of an ineffectual counter elite to prevent an actual one agitating a revolution). In the process, he bids them to ignore the misery and exploitation they live in(!) and rest content in the promise they'll live happy ever after eventually. That seems to be a recipe for making obedient workers to me. Maybe Jesus is, against all outward appearances, an agent (even if an unwitting one) of the regular elites.
There is also a correlation between popularity/power of Christianity in a country and wealth inequality within it. There is widespread economic inequality in places like North and South America and Africa, where Christianity is very popular (Russia and China are atheist countries with lots of income inequality, but my prediction isn't that all atheist countries are good for poor people, only that Christian countries are bad for them). That could be an indication that orthodox Christian ideology isn't very good at actually helping the poor.
Good point. The Church got quite rich, too, while its faithful didn’t necessarily.
Russia: to this day quite prone to paganism. A little less so in the cities, but there it worships mammon above all else.
Side note: Pelevin has a book titled “Empire V” about a secret society of vampires that feed off of the human hedonic treadmill. There’s also a prominent theme there of “glamour” and “discourse” being two sides of the same coin. I won’t spoil the plot by saying more. Highly recommend it.
Great “Jesus” post! Many people fail to pull off a really good one. I had one for Easter last year that was based on Aslan’s Zealot, but it was mostly about political economy and not that funny
You ding him for both populism and woke axiology (not to mention a sex scandal). Ouch. This is what nepotism gets you, I guess.
I'm surprised you made no mention of loving your enemies and turning the other cheek. Those are some pretty famous teachings from the Sermon on the Mount, and I tend to think they're complete horseshit when applied. Imagine telling a Ukrainian citizen to turn the other cheek to Russian soldiers and love them, and imagine telling liberals to do the same to Trump! They just seem to straightforwardly not hold up to scrutiny.
Interestingly, I’ve always found those a lot more permissible in the sense that they compel attitude more than action.
“Love your enemy” seems like a good strategy to avoid most wars, to sue for peace, and also to fight wars precisely and effectively—if you love your enemy, you know them too. I think pacifism in general makes sense, and a charitable, forgiving attitude (“turn the other cheek”) is a good idea. There are certainly coordination problems here—if the enemy doesn’t love you back, you’re gonna hurt for it—but in the sense that Jesus was teaching all mankind, I think it holds up.
Loving someone does not mean unconditionally accepting all of their behavior.
> I'm surprised you made no mention of loving your enemies and turning the other cheek. Those are some pretty famous teachings from the Sermon on the Mount, and I tend to think they're complete horseshit when applied.
Maybe it’s hit or miss as a strategy. It definitely helped Christianity overwhelm the Roman Empire.
Maybe I’m misinterpreting, but I feel this post fundamentally misunderstands Jesus’ teachings. He does not condemn wealth or glorify poverty—he warns against wealth becoming an idol that takes precedence over God. This is clear in 1 Timothy 6:10 (“The love of money is the root of all evil”) and the rich young ruler parable, where a man meets Jesus but cannot give up his money, even for heaven.
The small subset of teachings you’ve highlighted doesn’t single-handedly create a moral world, but rather encourages alignment with God over selfish, worldly desires. Without God at the centre, there is no foundation or compulsion to follow biblical teachings—but if He truly is, I believe it leads to a perfectly moral life.
Hope I haven't interpreted your point wrong.
While on the topic happy to debate points 2-5, as I find the evidence compelling, and would love to hear from Jewish point of view on OT prophecies and why they don't point to Jesus as the Messiah :)
the “eye of the needle” passage actually comes from the rich young man chapter!! it is after the young man walks away - i agree that in that context, it makes sense to read “rich” as shorthand for “unwilling to part with money even for salvation”
and then later we get an interaction with Zacchaeus, a super rich tax collector who everybody hates, and Jesus goes to his house and has dinner with him!
as a teacher Jesus’s first lesson is often “let go of your expectations about who is good or bad” - thus the hanging with prostitutes, and poor people, and sinners. tables are not the only thing he upends
People keep saying that the New Testament God is somehow more moral or nicer than the Old Testament God, but the Old Testament God only committed genocide and killed innocent children, while the New Testament God says that everyone who does not believe in him will be tortured for all eternity, which everyone would agree is much worse than just dying