The Anti-Gospel of Jesus Christ

by Miko Bartek

This dream of mine, to prove that Christian claims are true, was a good one. It motivated me to learn as much as I could. I became a sponge for knowledge. I began to read everything, in search of truth and wisdom. The Bible, encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri, novels, nonfiction, newspapers, magazines, cookbooks, comic books, whatever I could find. I became a reading machine.

By the time I was finished with high school, I had decided to become a Jesuit. This was the best way that I could see to realize my ambitions. It would offer me the opportunity to continue to pursue my dream to validate my faith, as well as to pursue my studies, all while serving the church. I had a hunger for knowledge. I needed to know what my inevitable critics would know — how they might attack my theories. My yet-to-be developed case for Christ would have to be good enough to withstand the withering criticisms coming its way.

During my Jesuit formation, I studied physics and chemistry at Georgetown University, earning a dual bachelors of science. By this point, I had a good scientific understanding. I also had a grasp of world history, the history of the church, as well as a history of tools and technologies, and a history of human evolution. But what I didn’t have yet was the proper perspective from which to build my case. I had all of this new knowledge. But my beliefs had not yet caught up.

I could see no actual contradictions between scientific knowledge and my Catholic faith. I had been taught to see God in everything and everyone. In my thinking, since God represented truth, then there should be no actual contradictions between what we know and what faith teaches us. Apparent contradictions could be explained away. My heart was fully invested in Jesus.

Now, looking back, it seems that God was setting me up. Assuming that God exists. I could not see how ripe I was for the mission God set me on. A mission that I could not believe that God would have in store for me as a devoted servant of Christ.

There is a reason I was chosen for this mission. I can’t place what class I was in when this occurred during my scientific studies. But there came a point when one of my teachers challenged everyone in the class as to whether we were willing to follow evidence, wherever evidence leads. He delivered an entire lecture or two on the topic. His words and his name have somehow fragmented from each other in my brain. But the words remained. He even led us in a solemn vow to do exactly this in our life’s work. I took the vow with utter seriousness.