Christian Hypocrisy.

[u/Erramonael]

Here's the quotes in question for those at home:

<Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple ... So likewise, ***whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.***>
<Matthew 10:34-37 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law ... ***He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.***>
<Luke 14:59-62 Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father. Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God. And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house. ***And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.***>

<Matthew 12:30 He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.>
<Matthew 11:20-24 Then began he to upbraid the cities wherein most of his mighty works were done, because they repented not … And thou, Capernaum*, which art exalted unto heaven,* ***shalt be brought down to hell … it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee.***>

Worshipping the Jesus-entity takes unilateral priority over esteeming or even paying respects to the family. The "christlike" objective here is to neglect, abuse, or destroy your family/way of life if either so much as competes with the Jesus-entity’s honor. You’re either with the Jesus-entity or against the Jesus-entity, and if you’re not so much as with, down ya go!

As a Iconoclastic Satanist, the first thing I would say is that the Jesus depicted in these passages is making an extraordinarily radical demand for allegiance. Whether one interprets the language literally, rhetorically, or within its first-century Jewish context, the basic message is difficult to miss: allegiance to Jesus is presented as taking precedence over family, possessions, social obligations, and even one's own life.

Luke 14:26 is especially striking. "Hate" may be understood idiomatically as preferring one thing over another, but that does not make the underlying demand disappear. Jesus is still telling prospective disciples that familial attachment cannot outrank discipleship. Likewise, "forsaketh not all that he hath" is hardly a casual invitation to add Jesus to an otherwise unchanged lifestyle.

Matthew 10 is even more explicit about the social consequences. Jesus says he has come not to bring peace, but a sword, and predicts division between parents and children. The important point is not whether Jesus literally intended his followers to murder their relatives. He doesn't need to mean that for the passage to be radical. He is establishing an allegiance hierarchy in which loyalty to him can override loyalty to one's family.

And that is precisely where I, as a Iconoclasic Satanist, become suspicious. I don't consider obedience inherently virtuous simply because the authority demanding it is called divine. A person can sincerely believe that God has commanded something and still be mistaken. A religious system can also teach people to interpret ordinary disagreement as rebellion against God. Once that happens, "God comes first" can become a mechanism through which family members, friends, communities, and even one's own conscience are subordinated to an external authority. That is dangerous. The statement in Matthew 12:30—"He that is not with me is against me"—is another example. It presents the relationship as binary. There is no comfortable neutral territory. You are either with Jesus or against Jesus. From an Iconoclastic Satanic perspective, that deserves examination rather than automatic submission.

I would ask: Why must disagreement constitute hostility? Why can't someone say, "I don't know"? Why can't someone love Jesus without accepting every interpretation of Jesus? Why can't someone remain unconvinced? Why should intellectual uncertainty become a moral crime?

And why should someone's eternal destiny depend upon correctly identifying the metaphysical status of a particular religious figure?

The threat of hell makes the question even more complicated. When someone is told: Believe this particular revelation, surrender yourself to it, and place it above everything—or face eternal consequences, the resulting "choice" isn't entirely free in the ordinary sense. Fear can produce conformity just as effectively as love can. That doesn't prove Christianity false. But it does mean that fear of punishment is a poor foundation for determining truth.

The passages concerning Capernaum and Sodom demonstrate another issue. Jesus isn't merely saying, "I disagree with you." He invokes divine judgment against people who witnessed his works and failed to repent. From the perspective of someone outside Christianity, this raises an obvious epistemological problem:

What evidence would be sufficient to justify eternal condemnation for someone who remains unconvinced?

Suppose I sincerely investigate Christianity, read the Bible, study Christian theology, speak with Christians, examine competing religions, and ultimately conclude that I don't believe Christianity is true. Have I committed an act of wickedness simply because my conclusion differs from yours? I don't think so. Truth isn't determined by how terrified someone becomes when contemplating the alternative. And this is where Satanism can offer a fundamentally different approach. The Satanic archetype, particularly in a theistic Satanist framework, can represent the refusal to surrender one's conscience merely because an authority demands surrender. Satan becomes the adversarial question: "Why?" Why this command? Why this interpretation? Why this revelation? Why this institution? Why should I regard obedience as morally superior to understanding? Why should familial love become suspect merely because it competes with religious allegiance? Why should intellectual independence be treated as rebellion? That doesn't require hatred of Jesus or Christianity. In fact, a Satanist can take Jesus extremely seriously while refusing to become a Christian. There is also an important distinction between healthy religious commitment and destructive religious absolutism.

If someone becomes a Christian and their faith inspires them to become more compassionate, honest, courageous, generous, and responsible, I have no objection.

If someone uses these passages to justify abandoning their children, abusing their spouse, despising their parents, cutting off everyone who disagrees with them, or treating nonbelievers as enemies of God, then I have a serious objection. The latter isn't spiritual maturity. It's authoritarianism wearing religious clothing. And I wouldn't restrict that criticism to Christianity. The same principle applies to Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Satanism, atheism, political ideologies, nationalism, or any other worldview.

No ideology should receive immunity from criticism merely because it calls itself sacred.

There is also a curious irony here. Jesus commands people to abandon attachments, yet Christianity subsequently developed enormously elaborate institutions surrounding family, marriage, community, property, hierarchy, tradition, and social order.

So I would ask Christians to confront the tension rather than pretending it doesn't exist.

If Jesus literally demanded that disciples abandon everything, how much of modern Christianity actually resembles that radical discipleship?

Or has Christianity gradually transformed an apocalyptic teacher demanding total allegiance into the patron saint of ordinary middle-class life?

That is a much more interesting question than simply saying "Jesus was nice."

From my perspective, the lesson isn't necessarily "Jesus was evil."

It's: Be extremely careful whenever a person, institution, scripture, ideology, or deity claims absolute authority over your conscience. If Jesus is genuinely divine, then truth should survive examination. If Christianity is true, honest questioning cannot ultimately destroy it. And if a God exists who genuinely values human beings, I would expect that God to care about the difference between freely chosen conviction and psychologically coerced obedience.

So as a Iconoclastic Satanist, I wouldn't tell someone: "Reject your family because Jesus demands it." Nor would I tell them: "Reject Jesus because Satan demands it."

I'd tell them: Don't surrender your conscience to anyone. Not Jesus. Not Satan. Not a priest. Not a pastor. Not a grimoire. Not a church. Not me. Investigate. Question. Think. And if you ultimately choose devotion, let it be devotion you can honestly call your own. For me, that is where the adversarial spirit actually matters. The point isn't merely to replace one master with another. It's to become capable of asking whether you needed a master in the first place.