Skip to main content

The Offense of Christ: Why the World Hates Christianity Symposium

Date: October 28, 2025 Type: Video Symposium Participants: Jordan Hall, O.G. Rose (Daniel), Luke Behncke, Andrew (Host) Topic: Exploring the fundamental tension between Christ and the world, why Christianity provokes hatred, and the paradox of church failure

Core Thesis​

"If there is just a small chance that any of that is true, then we all should be crapping our pants. There is something quite profound that has happened... trying to understand that at an energetic level, an ecology of energy, an energy economy - what really took place there." - Luke Behncke

This symposium explores why Christianity fundamentally offends the world at multiple levels - from the principalities and powers to individual human ego - and why the church must necessarily fail while remaining essential for human communion with the divine.

The Four-Fold Question​

Jordan Hall breaks down "Why does the world hate Christianity?" into four distinct questions:

  1. Why does The World (capital W) hate Christ? - The principalities and powers hate Christ because he has defeated them
  2. Why does the world (people) hate Christ? - The offense of conscious suffering and ego death
  3. Why does The World hate Christianity? - The church as imperfect vessel
  4. Why does the world hate Christianity? - The institutional failures and hypocrisy

"Christ has defeated the world. Christ has upended the world, that overturned the world and rendered the principalities under his dominion and ultimately replacing their positions of dominion and authority with human beings, saints, which must be particularly galling." - Jordan Hall

Key Insights​

Christianity Is Not a Religion​

"Christianity isn't properly a religion... it's precisely to the degree to which Christians take Christianity as a religion that they immediately set against each other in fighting about who knows more about the true religion." - Jordan Hall

The Logos Framework:

  • Christianity is about entering relationship with reality itself
  • Christ = The Way = The Logos = The principle by which relationship with reality is possible
  • Not another ideology on the bookshelf, but the context within which all ideologies exist

"If you work in the direction of just simply committing yourself to a fully intimate, fully present relationship with reality, you will discover at a certain point that you are by necessity doing so by means of primary relationship with the Logos." - Jordan Hall

The Necessity of Church Failure​

"The church by necessity must always fail. Well, that's very problematic... You as an individual will also by necessity fail." - Jordan Hall

The Paradox of Institution:

  • Churches must exist for community and communion
  • Churches will inevitably fail and become corrupt
  • Withdrawal from church = withdrawal from world
  • The meaningful suffering is entering relationships knowing they will fail

O.G. Rose: "How in the world do you create an institution that has part of its very internal logic the necessity of realizing that institutions can squash the spirit or lead to quantification that is bad? That contradiction right there seems to have a self-devouring logic."

Beauty First: The Strike of Reality​

"Beauty first. Of the three, one must enter into relationship with Christ beauty first, then truth and good can be properly situated. But if you don't do it that way, then things get very wacky very quickly." - Jordan Hall

The Grand Canyon Principle (via Walker Percy):

  • True beauty strikes us when we encounter it without preconception
  • Modern world reduces everything to confirming photographs we've already seen
  • We go to church to confirm what church is, therefore it cannot strike us
  • Beauty requires personal, first-person presence

O.G. Rose: "We now go to the Grand Canyon to confirm photographs we've seen of the Grand Canyon. Therefore it cannot strike us. We now go to church to confirm what church is. Therefore it cannot strike us."

Suffering and Openness​

"If I told you, hey, suffering is good for you, you would naturally say that's really dumb. Unless perhaps you're born after Jesus... there is something to the suffering servant that actually taps you into a way of being that otherwise was not afforded." - O.G. Rose

The Non-Rational Gain:

  • Suffering opens possibilities that rational/practical approaches never discover
  • Without non-rational gain from suffering, we're trapped in technological removal of all discomfort
  • Christ reveals alternative non-rational possibilities against natural experience

Luke Behncke on the hardest way: "The hardest way is hard because it's hard to be open and soft. It's easy to be hard."

The Energy That Entered History​

"Whatever happened 2,000 years ago, this outpouring of the Holy Spirit, this energy that entered our species is constantly pressing up against us. It's constantly causing this friction. It's like something's being incubated." - Luke Behncke

Universal Impact:

  • Something fundamental changed in history 2,000 years ago
  • This energy affects everyone, Christian or non-Christian
  • Either we turn toward it or reject it
  • Must reach a critical mass/boiling point

Conditionalism and the Holy Spirit​

O.G. Rose introduces the concept of "conditionalism" - like a rainbow that requires specific conditions to appear:

"Does a rainbow exist? Of course, it exists. Is it an illusion? No. But it requires certain conditions to be there... I think the church is at its best when it's somehow meeting a conditionality to make something like a rainbow."

Creating Conditions for the Spirit:

  • Churches should focus on creating conditions for Holy Spirit to appear
  • Not mechanical repeatability but living conditionality
  • Requires personal development and spatial arrangement
  • American Pentecostalism succeeds because of genuine belief Jesus might show up

The Problem of Categories​

"We always are putting people in boxes... All of that can seem like I'm trying to get to know you, but actually I'm not. I only get to know you when I have a radical encounter with you." - O.G. Rose

Breaking Free from Knowledge of Good and Evil:

  • Categories create false understanding that prevents real encounter
  • Church fails when it falls into self-understanding vs looking at Christ
  • Need regular encounter with otherness/enemies to break categories
  • Jesus appeared heretical to show fulfillment beyond categories

Appearing Heretical as Necessity​

"Jesus constantly appears a heretic... he has to appear heretical. That to me is part of the secret... the church has to always actually be willing to have the courage to appear heretical." - O.G. Rose

Requirements for Authentic Faith:

  • Must risk appearing heretical while maintaining genuine fidelity to Christ
  • Cannot choose your heretical appearance - must emerge from honest commitment
  • Church needs mechanisms to encounter genuine otherness
  • Without this, church becomes trapped in confirmation of its own categories

The Paradiso Challenge​

O.G. Rose references Dante's Paradiso and Beatrice's smile:

"If I were to smile right now at the level you're at, it would reduce you to ash... in holiness, there is still actually a developmental work that needs to be done so that you are not destroyed by God."

Handling More of God:

  • Christianity involves learning to handle increasing divine presence
  • Not just avoiding sin but developing capacity for holiness
  • Church often stuck in "Inferno logic" vs "Paradiso logic"
  • Goal is ever-increasing capacity to experience fullness of reality

Theosis: The Terror of Transformation​

Luke Behncke on the ultimate aim:

"The heart of the matter is the heart of the matter... Christ, how to open one's heart intelligently so that I can receive. And Christ's gift is always the greatest gift but it's constantly rejected."

The Dance of Grace:

  • Becoming graceful = becoming full of grace
  • Learning to receive and respond in relationship with divine communication
  • Requires undoing habits of gate and mind-body interference
  • Opens capacity for co-creation with God

The Modern Crisis​

Living in Babylon Despite Christ's Victory​

"We currently live in Babylon. In spite of the fact that this thing entered the world 2,000 years ago and didn't do nothing, it actually did a tremendous amount. Nonetheless, Babylon continues to burble forth." - Jordan Hall

Global Hikikomori Phenomenon​

O.G. Rose identifies four modern movements:

  1. Technology will save us (transhumanism)
  2. Return to small fascist-like tribal states
  3. Isolationism (Amish-like withdrawal)
  4. Hikikomori (complete social withdrawal)

"There's something incredibly rational about hikikomori actually, especially when you can get your food and you can get your entertainment... a world that lacks personal knowledge rationally ends up in something like hikikomori."

The Zoom Tradition Hope​

"Today we almost have kind of a Zoom tradition... you can actually now forget you're being recorded and actually you're talking about theosis... it enables the ability to actually record that and maintain self-forgetfulness to show that it's a possibility." - O.G. Rose

Powerful Conclusions​

The Offense of Representation Destruction​

Andrew's insight: "The image of Christ is so utterly offensive because it just destroys all the representations... it presents you with this terrible paradox of death and also beauty simultaneously... without giving you a moment to actually be able to put that into a representation that will serve you."

The Genesis Moment​

Jordan Hall to future viewers: "Can I make a quick shout out to that kid who's watching this in the year 3837... This is where it began folks. What up? What up the OG? This is the genesis."

The Path Forward​

Luke Behncke's call for remorse as reconciliation:

"If every Christian could come and willingly move towards that remorse which requires a seeing of how far away I am and not how close I think I am to Christ, then maybe that might be the necessary fuel... We're not fighting for Christ in a sense. We're wishing Christ to be here on earth with us so he can help us. For we cannot help ourselves."

Summary​

This symposium reveals that Christianity's offense to the world operates at multiple levels simultaneously - from cosmic spiritual warfare to intimate personal transformation. The church must fail to succeed, beauty must precede truth, and appearing heretical may be necessary for authentic faith. The modern challenge is creating conditions for genuine encounter with the divine while navigating a world increasingly trapped in representations, categories, and isolation. The path forward requires embracing meaningful suffering, maintaining openness to otherness, and recognizing that the energy released 2,000 years ago continues to press against all humanity, demanding response.