Spirituality Column #789

December 28, 2021

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

‘The God of Spinoza’    By Bob Walters

“I am the Lord thy God …” – Exodus 20:2

What I really want to talk about today is the Christian satire website The Babylon Bee, and Elon Musk, the current “richest man in the world.”

We’ll get to God and Spinoza in a minute.

For my philosophically inclined friends, sorry, this is not a treatise on the 17^th century Dutch, Jewish voice of the Enlightenment, Baruch Spinoza.  And for my Christian friends like me who are plenty happy with the simple love of Jesus and less inclined to ruin our day with endless philosophical postulates, propositions, and definitions, relax. 

The Bee will make you laugh, and Musk will make you think.

The Bee will also make you think, and Musk will also make my deepest Christian friends sit up and say, “Wait, what?  How can a guy as smart as Musk know so little about Jesus?”  Musk sat with the Bee in a 100-minute interview last week.  Fascinating.  I watched the whole thing.

The Babylon Bee (The Babylon Bee | Fake News You Can Trust) is a – forgive the ironic descriptive – wicked-smart Christian website that makes daily fun of everybody: religions, politics, culture, you name it.  It’s a quick and rewarding “read.”  Subscriptions are free, or you can pay.

Truth and surprise being critical components of humor, uncomfortable truth wrapped in wry observation is the Bee’s mission, fodder, and glory.  It was founded in 2016 and I’ve been a “Bee” premium subscriber for a couple years.  It is a daily Christian, cultural voice that, I think anyway, must not be silenced by woke, politically correct, or doctrinal sourpusses.

So that’s my pitch for the Bee – try it, you’ll like it – and we’ll move on to Musk.  If you quit reading right now because you already don’t like Elon Musk for whatever reason, at least give the Bee a look.  It’s my New Year’s gift to you.

Now on to Musk, Spinoza, and God: The Babylon Bee interview.

I was as blown away by Musk’s real-world transparency, talents, comportment, history, and observations – what an interesting guy – as I was startled by his comments late in the interview responding to specific questions about faith.  We all know dozens of people just like him, faith wise or non-faith wise. Musk is a person who can’t imagine anyone actually reading the whole Bible.

In the Bee interview, Musk first grills his hosts on who they are and what the Bee is.  Then he recounts his South African roots, late teens in Canada, developing his coding talent at the University of Pennsylvania, and one of his early ventures netting him $20 million.  We know it today as PayPal.

Named Time Magazine’s “2021 Man of the Year,” Musk recounts and opines on the media, humor, politics, his $240 Billion wealth and $11 billion income tax, Tesla, sustainable energy, SpaceX, colonizing Mars, Neuralink, artificial intelligence, and paralysis research.  Fascinating.

It was the Bee editors asking their “Ten Questions” (the same ten they ask all podcast guests) at the end the interview – two in particular – that triggered this column.

Bee: “What book would you add to the Bible?” Musk: “Has anyone actually read the Bible?”  Having grown up Anglican/Episcopalian like Musk, I know what he’s saying.

Then, question #10 from the Bee editors who reminded him they were Christians and the Bee was a Christian site, was this dandy: “Will you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?”  Musk flailed a bit, brought up the “God of Spinoza” (channeling Einstein: all things are God, God is merely the sum total of human experience), and having thus defined God, didn’t say yes or no.

Here is a guy with a handle on seemingly everything in the world, more or less flummoxed by the world’s single most important question.  I pitied Musk’s lack of Bible understanding, but also remembered when I was in the exact same pitching, uncomfortable boat of faith-around-the-edges.

Thanks to the Bee, and prayers for Mr. Musk. “I AM the Lord thy God” (Exodus 20:2) is the truth of God, and “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6) is the sure promise of Jesus.

Join me in prayer to reinforce that message with Musk.  He would make a great Christian.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes the link: Elon Musk Sits Down With The Babylon Bee