Perhaps that’s because humanity is fearful of God. Why shouldn’t we be? A multi-dimensional being who understands mathematics on a level we couldn’t begin to comprehend that generates a living code so refined that it guides everything from the course of the smallest neutron to the largest star is a terrifying being indeed. With a word, He speaks substance into being from nothingness. He covered the planet with water, killing nearly everything. He killed the firstborn children of an entire country to get a point across to its leader and wiped out an entire city because they refused to get their act together.

This is not an entity to be trifled with and yet, we trifle. Our monkey brains somehow delude us into thinking that we can somehow distance ourselves from Him, an omnipresent being that was, is, and will be all at once.

We three-dimensional beings that live in time and space can’t conceive of His reach. Grounded as we are on this planet, humanity’s go-to move to push God away is to simply will ourselves into a relationship where He’s not involved. God abides by this. His insistence on giving His creation free will also involves allowing them to operate outside His will, but being who He is, never outside His influence.

But humanity is content to believe they have some control over it all if they just push God away, but humanity is as creative as it is deluded. Pushing away God doesn’t always mean denying His existence or embracing His enemies. Sometimes it means redefining God and making him fit a little more neatly in your personal life. The idea is to make him “safe.”

Bonchie reported on one such attempt on Monday with an “AI Jesus.” This is a Christ that Oprah would have comfortably had on her show. He’s the shining image of love, tenderness, and most of all…acceptance. Naturally, this AI was going to be confronted on hard topics and, of course, it failed. As Bonchie reported, AI Jesus told a user to “follow their heart” on getting an abortion.

This AI Jesus isn’t the only one either. Live on Twitch all day and night is an AI Jesus that will answer your questions in chat. This AI Jesus got national attention and even got a headline from NBC News. This AI answers questions as Christ but has none of Christ’s qualities. It’s a digital mask worn by a program. Most of the chat attempts to make AI Jesus say funny things, but sometimes it’s confronted with a real question. Its responses are also incredibly safe and inoffensive. He quotes Bible verses but doesn’t seem to truly engage in anything truly difficult to talk about like abortion.

Going right to the heart of a controversial matter was a huge part of Christ’s teaching. He absolutely took hardline stances about things and confronted everyone about things, especially those in powerful positions. He was a man of love and compassion, so much so that He suffered one of the most painful deaths imaginable on our behalf, but this was the same man who knew that sometimes force was necessary. He encouraged his disciples to sell their cloaks to purchase swords just in case they needed them and He crafted a whip to drive cattle out of the temples before flipping the tables of moneychangers over.

When He comes back, it won’t be to play nice. He will strike down the nations and rule them with an iron scepter. Christ is the man you run to for safety, love, and forgiveness…but he’s not safe. Christ is terrifying, not just because he can kill with a word, but because he can verbally strip you down till the core of your very being is exposed. You have no defense against it.

But like God, the terrifying power that Christ possesses isn’t malicious in nature. Even in moments when He seems most cruel, God is healing, course-correcting, and making things stronger. When Christ called the woman at the well out for her adultery, He didn’t do so to hurt her, He did so to lead her to freedom.

He didn’t say “Follow your heart when choosing whether or not to give your body to another man.” But this is the Christ modernity wants. Safe, sterile, and inoffensive. A Jesus for the spiritual but not religious. A Jesus for cowards.

This Jesus will set no one free or break any chains. This Jesus will stand by placidly as you walk yourself further down the path of destruction, smiling softly as you proclaim “your truth” while denying the truth. In short, not Jesus at all. Just another donkey wearing the skin of a lion and declaring himself the King.

Mainstream modern culture sees Christ as a very inconvenient figure with incredibly inconvenient opinions, but since they can’t seem to completely eliminate Him from the public consciousness, their only course of action is to reshape Him as best they can in popular culture.

If people truly understood what Jesus was about and what He was fighting against on our behalf, they would still fear him, but they would run toward him as fast as they possibly could because He is dangerous. If they could really see the chains that were around them, be it governmental or spiritual, they wouldn’t hesitate to give themselves over. They would still be sinners, but at least they wouldn’t be under the delusion that their sin was somehow freeing..